For our third and final day of the CMC’s Backcountry Ski Touring School (BSTS) our group went up to the Brainard Lake area. A major gateway to the Indian Peaks Wilderness, I’d been up here the previous summer to climb Apache Peak. However, this is the first time I’ve visited the area and its network [...]
Archive for January, 2009
Brainard Lake ski touring
Posted in skiing, tagged Backcountry Ski Touring School, Brainard Lake, CMC cabin, Colorado Mountain Club, crosscountry skiing on January 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
HAMS Field Day #1
Posted in climbing, tagged Colorado Mountain Club, crevasse rescue, HAMS, High Altitude Mountaineering School on January 25, 2009 | 1 Comment »
After six evening lectures in the fall and one classroom/planning meeting a few days ago the first field day in the High Altitude Mountaineering School (HAMS) arrived. However, we’d get broken in slowly to field conditions, since our initial day was held in downtown Golden at the CMC’s headquarters. The first two hours were spent [...]
Raleigh Peak
Posted in hiking, tagged hiking, Raleigh Peak on January 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Pete and I arrived at the Colorado Trail parking lot to find it much snowier and colder than we’d expected. Wondering if we’d brought enough clothes, we hurriedly crossed the foot bridge over the South Platte River and warmed up by hiking the switchbacks upwards. Somewhat strangely, the snow decreased the higher we went (cold [...]
Loveland Ski Area
Posted in skiing, tagged Colorado Mountain Club, Loveland Ski Area on January 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
For the second field day of the Backcountry Ski Touring Ski (BSTS) offered by the CMC our group traveled to Loveland Ski Area. On our first field day at the Frisco Nordic Center we’d learned classic nordic skiing techniques. Today we’d spend our time on the area’s beginners slopes learning downhill skills on slightly thicker [...]
Homestake Peak
Posted in hiking, skiing, tagged Homestake Peak, skiing, snowshoeing on January 19, 2009 | 3 Comments »
A gang of 6 of us met northwest of Leadville on a Saturday morning for a trip up Homestake Peak, a 13,209 foot peak on the continental divide. In one of my less well-thought out ideas I decided to do the trip on my skinny backcountry nordic skis. The rest of the group was traveling [...]
North Table Mountain
Posted in hiking, tagged hiking, North Table Mountain on January 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
North Table Mountain is a major landmark for the Golden area and another summit I can see on a daily basis. I’ve done a little rock climbing on its flanks, but have never made the jaunt to the actual top. I cashed in a warm, sunny January afternoon with a trip to the top starting [...]
Frisco Nordic Center
Posted in skiing, tagged Colorado Mountain Club, cross country skiing, Frisco Nordic Center on January 12, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I spent much of Sunday at the Frisco Nordic Center in the first of three field days in the CMC’s Backcountry Ski Touring School (BSTS). I’d spent some days at the Summit county nordic centers over the past few years, but always just figuring things out on my own with no formal instruction. Five of [...]
Royal Mountain
Posted in hiking, tagged Colorado Mountain Club, Royal Mountain, snowshoeing on January 11, 2009 | 2 Comments »
It had been about a month since my last CMC activity and Kurt was leading a hike up Royal Mountain outside of Frisco. Four of us met for the day and started off in cold and windy conditions. As we worked our way up the Royal Mountain trail we eventually strapped on the snowshoes for [...]
Mount Galbraith
Posted in hiking, tagged hiking, Mount Galbraith on January 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
With fresh snow coming down I decided not to drive anywhere, but instead to use my front door as a trailhead. Mount Galbraith is one of the foot hill peaks I can see from home on a daily basis, but I’ve never hiked up to its summit. Seeking to rectify that I walked through a [...]
Kataka Mountain
Posted in hiking, tagged hiking, Kataka Mountain, Mount Evans Wilderness, snowshoeing on January 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I was checking weather forecasts and old trip reports looking for a suitable goal for Saturday’s outing, when Dwight posted that he was headed to Kataka Mountain in the Mount Evans Wilderness and was looking for partners. Steve and I both jumped aboard and the next morning found us all departing from the Threemile Creek [...]
