This winter just keeps on giving.  

After a week or more of ridiculously windy, precipitation-free days, a huge storm rolled through Colorado and buried the central mountains in a foot of new snow.  Normally for us, that would mean a trip up to Monarch but this week is spring break. Everyone and their brother is there.  Now that we’re locals, when it comes to skiing, we don’t tolerate crowds well.

As an alternative, there’s the solitude of backcountry skiing.  Tourists don’t typically venture beyond the resorts.  Unfortunately, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center was showing a high level of avalanche risk for the Sawatch range for the whole weekend including a chance for both persistent slab and storm slab avalanches. So not one, but two potential ways to die.

Uh, nope. Way above my pay grade.

We ended up going up to Monarch for some uphilling just to get our powder fix while avoiding lift lines.

Amazingly, by Monday the avalanche risk level had dropped all the way back to moderate.  Clearly this was some heavy, sticky snow for the risk level to change that fast.  With the spring break crowds still tripping all over themselves at Monarch, it was time to head up into the backcountry.

Much better.

A lot of folks backcountry ski around here so despite the only day-old reduction in avalanche risk level, by the time I got up to the trailhead there was already a well-defined skin track into the woods.

Being in the backcountry after a big snow is uniquely beautiful.  It’s like Mother Nature wipes the world clean of all traces of activity, both human and animal, leaving in its place a blank canvas of white just begging for the swooping, curved brush strokes of skis.

As I got further back into the woods, the skin track gradually disappeared and I was left breaking trail through untracked snow following what remained of an old skin track, now just a faint indentation in the snow.

View of Monarch ski area from my vantage point.

Time to paint!

A pause halfway down.

One set of tracks, mine.

Getting first tracks down a powder run is always an amazing feeling no matter where you’re skiing.  But in the backcountry, it also means you’re on your own to break trail on the way back up.  In twelve inches of fresh powder it’s a bit of a leg and lung burner.  But the scenery and the anticipation of the next run make it worthwhile.

Crossing my ski track on the way back up.

Man-eating tree well.  Steer clear.

Finally back to a skin track. Heading up for another run.

Lots of untracked powder.  Lots of options.

I made a couple of runs in this area in two different directions to sample the slope steepness and tree density on different aspects of the mountain.  On my way back up the second time I crossed my ski tracks and stopped to admire my artful ski painting.

I was having a great time but after three runs and over a thousand feet of vertical in my legs, it was time to call it a day.  By paying attention to direction and avoiding terrain traps like creek bottoms, I was able to make my final run the longest, taking me all the way back down to the car.  A spectacular day out in the mountains. Nothing better in the winter than a big dump of snow!