Arapahoe Basin / Pass Smoke Shack

Location: Arapahoe Basin / Pass Smoke Shack
People: AKD, JP, Alex, Tyler
Duration: Oct29 8am - Oct30 3pm

Arapahoe Basin/Pass Smoke Shack [Video/Snd.mov]
(parts filmed in low light - turn up brightness)
The weekend was perfect, expect for the snow. AKD and I setup camp at Arapahoe Basin early Saturday morning and got breakfast. Around 8:30am some snow started to enter the valley just as first chair was heading up. We got in line and soon we were on our way up the mountain. The 500ft of vertical or so that they have open isn’t bad, but get at it early. By noon we were waiting almost 45 minutes per lap. Around 1pm we decided to head over to the bar and start drinking, ran into Mac and crew up on the balcony and had a few beers. The crowds of gapers were difficult to deal with so we decided to call it a day and part ways. I hiked up to the terrain park with the video camera to mess around and get some shots. Mac, D, Pin Pin Mark, Sarah, and JT were in the park so that gave me a chance to play with the new camera a bit.

My plans were to meet up with Alex and camp in the backcounty smoke shack up on the pass. Around 4pm, Alex and Tyler rolled into the Arapahoe Basin lot with all the gear. We made our way back toward the pass up to the shack. Thank god Alex and Tyler brought tons of fire wood cause it was cold as hell. We did 4 or 5 laps from the car up to the shack with all the supplies. 2-3 loads of wood, our backcountry gear, and a cooler filled with beer/food. We got all settled in the hut around 5pm or so and Alex started dinner. Below the new deck on the hut is a nice powder chute now filled with jibs. The small round rail and a new tree jib are set up and shredable. I had to get it done so this is how I spent the remaining amount of light. 8pm or so rolls around, we are out standing on deck drinking beer after a rad dinner.

 
To our suprise we noticed another car pull into the lot through the trees. Next, we hear a few dudes yelling up, “Your dome light is on……”. Obvisously, a mission back to the trucks is in order.. so Tyler and I gear up and head down the mountain. Upon reaching the lot, Tylers truck is dead.. the 4 new dudes are kinda just hanging out asking were we came from. Seconds later it was realized they were here to camp out in the shack as well. Now 7 dudes deep, we thank them for the heads up on the car and head back up the mountain to the hut.

 
Evan, Trevor, Tavida, and Andy got up to the hut around 9pm or so.. now 7 deep in the small shack we started drinking heavily. Lucky, they packed up a 30 pack of PBR, 3 40oz of Olde E, and a bottle of Jack Daniels..we broke out the cards and stared some blackjack. Spent most of the night hanging out with our new friends, drinking, playing cards, checking out the stars from Colorado’s highest altitude casino. The shack stayed a nice 55 degrees most of the night, and we burnt almost 14 hours of fire wood. We went to bed hoping for snow, the next morning we woke up to alpineglo and clear skies. No snow, we decided to grab breakfast at Arapahoe Basin and get in a few laps. We parted ways with our new friends and rallied over to the basin. It was now snowing again and the gapers were starting to pile up. Don’t even know how bad the gapeage got yesterday, but we did a few laps and went home.

  

Radiobeacon Mountain

Location: Radiobeacon Mtn, Rollins Pass, Forest Lakes Cirque
Riders: JP, Alex
Start: 10am - 4pm (at car)

The day trip started kinda late compared to normal adventures, but I met Alex up at his house in Coal Creek Hieghts around 8am. He cooked up a quick breakfast and we decided on checking out Rollins Pass. Much less snow then Jones Pass we were happy to four wheel the cruiser all the way back to Forest Lake trailhead and lakes. Searching out the window for some good snow we almost settled on a small patch above Yankee Doodle lake, but ventured on and found a nice stash off the north pitch of Radiobeacon.

 
We set off downhill, bushwhacking our way toward the snow. The hike was pretty nice and we made it to the north base/forest lakes area of Radiobeacon in an hour and a half. From there we decided to boot pack up to a small snow filled couloir that was hidden from the road. We took a few laps in spring like conditions under beautiful bluebird skies. On the decesent, we headed a bit further south and ended up below the southern ridge of Radiobeacon. This snow field was the destination and after 1 lap we were done. Got in maybe 20 or so good turns and it started to get way patchy.

  
At that point we decided to bag snowboarding for the day (except maybe from the ridge descent) and summit Radiobeacon. Alex and I booted our way up the north face of Radiobeacon to the southeast ridge. It was a pretty steep climb and we were happy to get a workout. Near the top we were greeted by a false summit and had another 400 ft or so to go. We summited Radiobeacon and decided to head north along the ridge and check out all the lines in the forest lakes cirque. Super sick, gnarly steep cliffy lines all around, too bad there wasn’t enough snow coverage to hit ‘em. We found a nasty rocking wind packed couloir and tried to shred down as far as possible. After a few really bad rocky turns we were boot packing down and out around cliffs back to the car.

 
We probably logged 5 miles or so hiking and 20 or so good turns, all in all it was a good trip and good to get out and scout the conditions. Rollins isn’t ready after the early Oct. storm.

 

Jones Pass - Butler Gulch

Location: Jones Pass Cirque
Riders: JP, iskibc, Kya, RJ
Start: 6am - 4pm (at car)

The anticipation started early monday as I was sitting in my office watching the storm dump over most of colorado. Loveland Pass reported almost a foot and a half and some spots in the northern central rockies got more then two and half feet. I knew the following day tour would be epic, if not brutal.

Jones Pass - Oct. Storm [Video Clip/Sound.wmv]
I met up with some backcountry skier friends from TGR in empire at 6am. The previous day we decided on doing a Jones Pass - Butler Gulch super tour. We rolled out of empire on the way to henderson mine, we decide to push it and see how far we could four wheel the trucks up the Jones Pass road in 20″ deep snow. We made it almost to tree line before getting RJ’s 4runner stuck in a ditch off the side of the pass road.

GPS Route & Waypoints

Lucky Kya had a tow rope and we latched it up to the Landcruiser and yanked him out. At that point we decided to park and start the slog. Afer a qiuck beacon check, the day started partly cloudy and we were stoked to see blue skies, that quickly changed after the first few switch backs above treeline. It was still dumping snow and windy as hell, vertigo had set in a while ago and visibility was non existent. The vertigo was really bad and we had no barring on landmarks or anything for that matter. After postholeling up to my waist for the last hour i was white knuckkling the GPS and topo maps. We hit the ridge and jone pass summit at 12,500′ and had to wait for a weather window before we could drop the first run. Finally we could see down to the flats below and we took off. Short run, great powder, but just a warm up for what was in store. Traversing the flats toward the southern ridge on jones pass basin we boot packed straight up this gnarly couloir filled with snow.

It was a brutal climb and very slow after the 3 mile slog. We reached the small cornice at the top and made our way along the ridge to a spot we saw earlier from the slog in. The weather broke as we were planning the descent, Kya dropped first and we all had smiles watching him rip lines through endless blower pow. Run 2 was so good we forced ourselves to boot pack back up the avalanche chute we just hit for another lap. The snow was great, lots of coverage and face shots if you wanted them.

Overall the snow was a bit on the wet side but plenty slashable. We admired our fresh cut lines on the slog out and ended up tracking almost 3,500ft of powder turns and a little over 6 mile slog in deep colorado powder.

GPS Route Elevation Profile

 

Some Highlights:
* watching RJ explode off a rock jump, core shot
* watching Kya and iskibc rip killer pow lines and turns
* getting pissed at iskibc for telling me i wouldn’t need my snowshoes
* freezing our ass off at the jones pass summit in white out conditions
* finding my handwarmers stashed in my bc pack. (thanks mom!)
* dropping off a small rock into untracked powder chute in october
* ripping face shots having half blower/half wet pow stuck on your goggles
* the slog out wondering if we’ll make it back to the cars before dark
* the miller highlife and coolranch dorritos waiting at the cars