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Colorado Backcountry: Jones Pass / Butler Gulch

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

Colorado Still Going Off!

Most of these trips I was solo or with the dog, so no fun shred pics. You get the idea though. Plenty left if you work for it. This is what i did all summer, same as last summer. same as next summer. Summer aint all bad

Enjoy the pics from some of the adventures and even a little fly fishing WY
style.

Loveland Pass - Late June
LP-springlines

LP-springlines2

Loveland Resort Terrain Park - Late June
LR-adam-bs3

LR-adam-flip

LR-pin-pin-mark-bs1

LR-sleds-and-drrrtyD

Rocky Mountain National Park
RMNP-lavacliff

RMNP-sundance-mountain

Colorado Backcountry: La Plata - North Face Unnamed Couloir

La Plata Peak, UnNamed Couloir
Distance: 10 miles round trip (2 mile bushwhack)
Vert Gain: 4400'
Vert Ski'd: 1600'
Duration: 9 hr to car, 5:00am start
Date: 07/16/2005
Elevation: 14,450
Starting Location: Lake Creek Trailhead

La Plata Route
LaPlata-Route

Shreddin
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Yup thats my Forum park board
LaPlataUnnamedCouloir-ShredDescent2

Mini-Couloir
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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

Colorado Backcounty: Update

ridge line

It's been deep lately. Winter hasn't given up on Colorado, with over 2 feet of fluffy powder just this week, shit is going off. We've done a lot of riding since the last update so I don't even know where to start. Berthoud and Loveland Pass are sick right now with tons of fresh over the weekend. We rode up at Loveland again on Sunday and it was epic, tons of fresh powder and lots of fun wind blown features of slash. The trees are holding a lot of snow, and you don't have to search very hard for fresh lines. Loveland resort is report over 70" base so you know the snow is good. The Berthoud backcountry is insane right now too, they have been getting a lot of snow these last few months and things are setting up nicely. If your willing to hike and take a long day trip you can access some really fresh steep terrain up near the divide around Berthoud. Don't forget to check avalanche conditions and make safe decisions, steeps just aren't worth your life. AKD and I also hit up Mary Jane last week and the snow was great, after MJ we went up to the Berthoud summit to build a kicker. The powder up on the summit was completely untracked and it was a great landing for our mini huckfest. Even Eldora is getting the stoke, I was up there yesterday and it was perfect. They reported 22" over the last 2 days, the back side Corona was untracked all day long. I rode the steeps on the backside and trees most of the day. Tons of light snow in the morning, around 1pm the sun broke through and things started getting mashed and heavy.

Colorado Backcountry: Loveland Pass

CDOT Army

Friday 6am, we found ourselves kicking it with the plow driver from CDOT waiting for the pass to open. He made his way up to blast the seven sisters chutes and the dude ski'd his way down. 9" inches new snow we wre stoked to shred. Around 7am the pass opened and we started to hitch. The shit was deep, the storm dropped a good amount of new snow and it continued throughout the day. We stayed below tree line and had unlimited fresh all day. We also met up with our new plow driver friend for some laps. He was a skier and could shred it up gnar. AKD and I went over to Loveland Resort around 1pm to check out some of the lines off chair 8. Pretty sick over here too, pretty of fresh still around and lots of lines in the trees. The terrain park was kinda whack, most of the rails were set up all crooked and shit. It was wierd. The wall ride was the best feature for sure. We got bored here fast and went back over to the pass to hitch. Got plenty of rides all afternoon until we left for keystone around 7pm. Keystone was alright, hit a few night lines then went straight for the park. The park setup is ill, but it was hella icy from kids hitting shit all day. Tons of jibs and sick jumps. The A51 terrain park lift makes laps easy.

LP Deep/Tree Jib [Video Clip/Sound.wmv]

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