Our starting point for the day:

Click on images to enlarge 

This past weekend I connected with Andy and Colin on a tour up New York Mountain in the Northern Sawatch range. We met early at Colin’s place in Chief Hosa and managed to drive the truck all the way up the 4×4 road to the summer trailhead. A good 12″-15″ of snow blanketed the road making for an interesting and hairy ride up the jeep road. We made it to the trailhead from the town of Eagle in about an hour and quickly got packed up and ready to go for the day. Not expecting we would make it all the way up to the trailhead in the truck, we had planned on this being a long day rather than a quick 2 mile, 1,500′ jaunt up to the summit. Knowing we had a really short climb to the summit we got cocky and started making comments on how we would be lapping the couloirs of New York Mountain this day. Well, karma kicked us in the ass and made our anticipated ’short’ day into a rather long one.

Just reaching treeline:

Colin with Edwards in the background:

Andy further down the ridge:

We blazed up the lower trail and made it to treeline rather quickly and decided to check out the ridgeline to get a glimpse of the couloirs coming off of New York. Our options were to either follow the long ridge up to the summit of New York and then drop our line of choice or ski a line off the ridge down to the base of the couloirs and climb our intended ski route. We chose the latter as we really didn’t get a good view of the face and didn’t have a good sense of the snowpack we would be dealing with once in the couloir. We scrambled up the ridge a little ways and finally settled on a somewhat spicy line down to New York lake.

Colin and Andy scoping out some options off the ridgeline:

Run #1 down off the ridge:

Colin enjoying the pow:

Andy’s turn:

Travel from the lake to the base of the couloir was rather heinous due to the thin snowpack and maze of large boulders and rockfall. After some work and patience we finally made it to the base of the couloir and began booting up the apron. The snow in the couloir was fairly consistent, with the exception of the thin ice layer on top.

Colin taking a look at our options:

Going up:

Thanks to Andy for putting in the bootpack:

Andy:

We climbed a good 1500′ to the top of the chute and made our descent shortly thereafter as the daylight was beginning to fade. The skiing was so-so due to the thin crust layer on top. If it hadn’t been for the crust ski conditions would have been much more favorable. Once we reached the bottom of the line, we put our skins back on and trudged our way west to our exit couloir. Our exit couloir was a minefield of instabilities and downright crappy snow conditions making our ascent rather stressful. It was our only way back up to the ridge without having to contour and take a major detour, so we pushed through and played it super conservatively. We found lots of pockets of collapsing snow, whomphing, and cracking. We played it safe by hugging the rock wall and using more rock to climb up our exit rock than snow. While the snow was thin, it still had potential of destruction due to the large exposed boulders near the bottom. We managed to make it up the exit couloir and onto the ridge by dusk and pushed our way back to the truck shortly thereafter.

Near Piney Lake:

These guys were hanging out around my camp for most of the weekend:

Within 5 mintues the sky went from cloudless to full-on stormy. Nothing like a warm camp fire:

Some nice color on the way home:

Check out the Trailer to “Hand Cut” here:
www.sweetgrass-productions.com

The days are getting shorter, the nights colder, and the anticipation of the coming season is growing with each passing day. In the mix of all the new gear hype and changing of the seasons this year’s ski porn trailers have been surfacing left and right. Sweetgrass Productions, a grassroots Colorado film company out of the Springs, have stepped up to the plate and found their niche in the ski film making industry with their new film “Hand Cut”. Sweetgrass Productions aims their focus on filming remote backcountry lines as well as capturing a glimpse of mountain living and culture. They take an artistic approach to ski film making and have done a superb job with “Hand Cut”, a film that captures the soul of our sport blending some of the roots of backcountry skiing in the San Juans and interior British Columbia region with the progression of backcountry skiing as we see it today.

I got the opportunity to ski and film with these guys a few days this past winter and their passion and dedication towards backcountry skiing and mountain culture/history is radiant. They are young and upcoming artists/skiers/storytellers who live for sharing the essence of the backcountry skiing experience through the medium of film and digital video. “Hand Cut” will most definitely rival related filmmakers such as Powderwhores and the like.

Some great athletes are featured in the film such as Colorado’s own, Nick Devore, Coast Range ski mountaineering legend, John Chilton, and BD rider Will Cardamone. Filmed on location in Alaska, British Columbia, and Colorado, this film will satiate the senses and stoke the fire for the season to come. A lot of hard work and sweat into making this film become a reality, but it’s quite apparent all of that hard work has or will pay off for Nick Waggonner (Director) and crew. This is some of the best shot backcountry riding I’ve seen in some time as each scene has been carefully planned out and executed.

Anyway, enough talk about the film, check out the trailer and be sure to get yourself to the World Premiere in Aspen this coming weekend as it will not disappoint.

World Permiere
Sept. 12th Aspen, CO Wheeler Theatre 7:30pm with Aspen Historical Society. Live deep-country blues from John-Alex Mason and FREE BEER to follow. Tickets for $7 and benefit the AHS.

Colorado
Sept. 17th Fort Collins, CO Lyric Cinema

Sept. 18th Denver, CO The Oriental Theater 7pm

Sept. 20th Boulder, CO University of Colorado Boulder Room 140

Sept. 21st Colorado Springs, CO Armstrong Hall Colorado College 5pm Campus BBQ and music to follow.

Sept. 24th Breckenridge, CO Breckenridge Theatre $1 pints

Sept. 25th Leadville, CO Provin Grounds Coffee Shop 7pm

Oct. 1st Glenwood Springs, CO Glenwood Springs Community Center 7:30pm

Oct. 3rd Vail, CO Vail Mountain School Arts Center 7pm. Benefits go to the VMS tele team.

Oct. 7th Silverton, CO Mobius Cycles Cafe $1 Pints

Oct. 8th Durango, CO Abbey Theatre

Oct. 10th Salida, CO YOLO Clothing store (100 F Street) 7pm with live music

Oct. 15th Golden, COBent Gate Mountaineering 7pm

Nov. 29th Silverton, CO Steam & Steel Cafe 7pm

California
Nov. 15th Mount Shasta, CA TBA

Nov. 17th Squaw Valley, CA TBA

Nov. 19th San Francisco, CA TBA

Nov. 21st Santa Cruz, CA TBA

Nov. 27th Ventura, CA TBA

Canada
TBA Calgary, AB

Oct. 14th Canmore, AB The Drake Inn with Teton Gravity Research 7:30pm

Oct. 17th Banff, AB Elk and Oarsman Pub and Grill with TGR

Oct. 18th Nelson, BC

Oct. 21st Fernie, BC The Arts Station

Oct. 23rd Revelstoke, BC Visual Arts Centre

Oct. 23rd Squamish, BC The Eagle Eye Theater

Oct. 29th Vancouver, BC Vancity Theare at the Vancouver International Film Centre 7pm Tickets: $10/$7 for students

Feb. 20th 2009 Nelson, BC Coldsmoke Powder Festival Capitol Theater 7pm

Idaho
Nov. 7th Winter Wildlands film festival

New Mexico
Oct. 9-12th Taos Mountain Film Festival

Oregon
Nov. 5th Portland, OR Mcmenamins Kennedy School 6pm Tickets:$10

Nov. 6th Hood River, OR Skylight Theatre

Nov. 12th Bend, OR Mcmenamins St Francis School 8:00pm

Nov. 13th Ashland, OR TBA

Utah
Oct. 16th Salt Lake City, UT Brewvies 7pm and 9pm 21+

Washington
Oct. 30th Bellingham, WA Mt. Baker Theatre 7pm

Nov. 8th Seattle, WA Evo Ski Shop 7pm

Wyoming
Oct. 18th Jackson, WY The Playhouse 7:30pm

East Coast Swing
Oct. 18th Burlington, VT TBA

Dec. 9th Portsmouth, New Hampshire TBA

Dec. 11th Boston, MA TBA

Dec. 13th NY, NY The Knitting Factory

You can check out the 2007-2008 Season in Review video by clicking on the play button below. Enjoy!

Season in Review from Dave Bourassa on Vimeo.

The upper face:

There are several potential ski routes off Lightning Pyramid. The west face offers up some tight and steep couloirs dropping from the summit, while the east face is a good mix between a fluted Alaskan face and the cliff riddled north face of North Maroon Peak just across in the next valley. We opted for the east face as coverage was much better on the east side and it offered up more vertical than the west side. We also wanted to get a glimpse of the current conditions on the east face of Thunder, as that was one of Andy’s goals for this trip as well. Just a few weeks prior Chris Davenport and Ted Mahon skied a 1st descent of the east face of Thunder. After seeing photos from their trip the urge to get back up on that mountain heightened and so a plan was put into place.

With hot weather on the horizon and a 10 day ski trip to the PNW coming up the following weekend we were in a crunch to get this one done. This was really the final opportunity of the season to get after it. The goal was to ski Lightning earlier in the season, but due to scheduling conflicts and weather, Andy and I had to put it off more than a few times. It felt good to finally get it done, even though the conditions on the steep upper face were a bit sketchy to say the least.

We rode the sleds up Maroon Creek road and arrived at our camp sometime around the 11 o’clock hour Thursday night. The plan was to skin all the way up to the base of Lightning so we could get a quick jump on it the next morning, but since I had so much shit along with a Granite Gear pulk sled, our plan foiled quickly and we setup camp at the mouth of the creek. There was no way that sled would make it through the steep bushwhack up the creek in the middle of the night. Or should I rephrase and say that I wouldn’t have made it up as I had a whole bunch of luxury items in the sled and nowhere near packed for a light outing. So, after setting up camp really quickly we went to bed and set the alarm for 3:30am.

We awoke a few hours later and worked our way up the valley. Once you get into the valley proper it is a pretty flat and basic skin up to the base of the peak. From camp to the base it’s a good 4.5 mile skin with only a 1,000′-1,300′ gain in vertical. Not bad at all, but a lot of side-hilling if you choose to follow the trail.

The morning brought low clouds and mild temps. “Where the hell is the forecasted sunshine?” Andy said as we started our climb up the east face. Well, at least the sun wasn’t heating up the snow too fast, but due to the cloud cover the snow never really locked up tight overnight.

Andy skinning up towards the main face:

Fog began to roll in and out shrouding over the summit tops of the Pyramid group. It was a bit mysterious at times as it appeared we were being engulfed by the mountain.

Andy climbing the lower section:

Andy about 3/4 of the way up:

Scenery part way up:

Another view:

We continued to climb and made it to the summit right around the time the clouds broke and the sun came out. The climb up the face was fun and steep. The snow got deeper the higher we went. A good 18″ or so of wet snow had fallen a few nights prior, making for some rather tough climbing conditions up around the top.

Andy nearing the summit:

Andy walking along the narrow ridge with Thunder in the background:

We hung out on the summit for a good 45 minutes or so as the weather was near perfect with no wind and mild temps. By this time the sun wasn’t directly hitting the east face. With the cloud cover earlier in the day we figured the face needed a little more time to corn up.

Andy on the summit:

After eating some lunch and signing the register we got in position and made our descent down the gut of the east face. I dropped in first and found interesting snow conditions. The new wet snow was still moist and hadn’t setup since it fell a few nights prior. The underlying layers were fairly solid, but there was no telling what that new snow was going to do. So, we took it easy on the upper part of the face, skiing from rock band to rock band as carefully as possible.

Dave near the top:

Andy coming off the top:

Further down:

Once we got down a few hundred vert the snow was in much better shape and we were able to let our guard down a bit to ski more aggressively. The cliffs on this face are quite large. Anywhere from 50′-200′, do you definitely gotta have your route planned ahead of time as everything from above looks continuous.

More skiing:

The further we worked our way down the better the snow skied. We cranked fun GS turns on the long apron all the way down to the valley floor.

Further down:

The slog out was a bit nerve wracking as the sun had turned all the snow into sloppy and collapsable mashed potatoe soup. I think it took longer to get out than to get in, as we were constantly falling through trap doors and onto our faces. Not much fun at all. All in all it was a super fun day, and I’m glad we were able to get it done. I’d imagine that face is melting pretty fast with all the warm weather we’ve been having as of late. Definitely not a slope I would want to be on during a widespread wet slide cycle.

Pyramid Peak sunrise, day 2:

Sunrise and the Bells:

A late season snowstorm brought a good 10″-18″ of fresh powder to parts of Colorado on Friday night. Our original plans to head to Aspen for the weekend were scrapped after looking at the forecast. Instead, we headed for Clinton Peak, another fun high peak between Copper Mountain and Leadville. The climbing and skiing was lots of fun and conditions ended up being near perfect for our ski descent. The skin up the Clinton Amphitheater is a bit tedious as it is flat and boring for a good 2-3 miles, but once you start gaining elevation at the base of Clinton it becomes a super fun climb.

Clinton Peak is Colorado’s 80th highest peak and sits in both the Mosquito and Tenmile Ranges. After Clinton I only have McNamee and Traver left to ski to finish off the string of peaks between Copper and Leadville. Some good ski days have come about from this row of peaks. Pacific north face, Crystal north face, Drift west face, the Bermuda triangle off Atlantic, a powder run off the top of Jacque Peak, etc.

Mark just cresting the shadows nearing the apron:

We ended up skiing the NW couloir off the summit of Clinton. Weather was near perfect, although a bit cold on the summit, and the ski conditions were really good as we skied powder and some nice corn all the way back to the trucks down at the base of Clinton Reservoir. Enjoy the pics.

Click on images to enlarge and view full size

Mark:

Skin track up the apron:

Mark skinning:

Bootpacking up the middle section:

Sawatch Scenic:

McGyverying Mark’s broken heel piece:

Mark charging on his new binding setup:

Apron pow: