Colorado Backcountry: Apache Mountain - Apache Couloir

Apache Mountain, Apache Couloir
Distance: 13 miles round trip
Vert Gain: 3500'
Vert Ski'd: 2000'
Duration: 10 hr to car, 4:00am start
Date: 07/09/2005
Elevation: 13,500
Starting Location: Brainard Lake

Alright, I promised a write up so I'm going to try and summarize a few of the summer highlights. Starting with June, what a great year. shit, We had a dump of 10" up on Loveland Pass june 5th. We couldn't believe it, spent a few days up on the pass gettin the last of that. That was the end of the freshies, but not the fun. The next weekend I met up with my friend drrtyD and her boy adam from Loveland resort. Home boy has the keys so we took the sleds up to the old terrain park and rebuild one of the kickers. Great day, pin pin Mark and Adam were killing it and I was trying to take pics. After a nice sunburn, I took a week off. Mid June I did a few solo trips back to rollins pass and skyscaper glacier. The approach from the east depends on the snow conditions on the road, I made it about 1.5 mile below yankee doodle lake and parked the cruiser. I had my rottie bones with me so we headed up the pass road toward the rock cut and needle eye tunnel. Snow wasn't bad, got some good turns in and just enjoyed the outdoors. The next day I decided to head over to rocky mountain national park and see what I could find off trail ridge road. I got up near upper hidden valley around 7:30 and started hiking up. Did a few laps and met up with some locals, I did some car pool laps with them then ended up hitch hiking for a few more hours. Great spot, lots of turns. Later that day I went further up trail ridge and summitted sundance mountain.. a few turns back down after lunch at the summit. A few days later I took a trip up to st. marys glacier, still plenty of snow and there are a few jibs going on. July was kinda mellow, I only got out a few times to apache couloir and la plata. Lots of hiking and great camping. The shred was awesome as the snow was super slush and we had a lot of fun jumping the runnels and hitting the "mini" couloirs all around. I haven't really gotten anything done in august, been traveling for work. Planning on heading up to st. marys soon or getting back up near isabelle glacier. Also planning on hitting up taylor and andrews glacier in RNMP sometime in september. Season is almost here!

Apache Mountain/Navajo Peak - Route

The Slog In

Climbing Apache Couloir

48 Degrees

Fresh trout we caught on the hike out