After skiing Snowbasin we met former Admin for sushi diner, then spent the night in Spanish Fork. On Wednesday we drove 6 hours to Gunnison with quick stop at the overlook of Black Canyon.
This has been a spring week in Colorado as well as Utah, but with the much higher altitude than northern Utah I expected more winter conditions. However the frontside of Crested Butte faces west and the base area was still bulletproof when we got on the hill about 10:20.
Exiting Silver Queen we saw this sign.
The High Lift is a surface lift and a part in its braking mechanism broke, causing it to slide backwards about 50 feet. With less than 2 weeks remaining in CB’s season, locals suspect that Vail will not expedite getting that part and it will wait until next year.
We skied 4 cruisers on Paradise, which was all winter snow being groomed and north facing. Despite being the obvious place to be on the mountain in the morning Paradise never ran much over a 5 minute lift line. Below Paradise is East River, where the snow softened pleasantly by 11AM.
Liz took a fourth lap on East River while I took a first lap through North Face, then brought Liz for a second.
We exited via the highest exit traverse under the Paradise lift. I did not realize until later that Easy Out was a wider trail one layer lower. Navigation and route finding is the key feature of the entire North Face area. At the top of its T-bar is this map of part of the area.
Next time I wanted to find the Spellbound/Phoenix area. I started down the Schofield Road and soon saw the sign for Spellbound pointing to a traverse track into the woods. The traverse had several step up sections, and in retrospect I should probably have taken my skis off..
In 2001 I had traversed into Phoenix with Adam, but this was the first time I’ve been at the top of Spellbound.
Dead center of the pic is a flat spot on the far side where I saw a few skiers traverse, presumably to High Nowhere. I started out that way, saw the traverse round a corner and drop off with huge rock on immediate right. I exercised discretion and skied Upper Spellbound.
After that pitch I could look back to skiers in High Nowhere.
During the next section I paused to watch a couple more skiers.
View up from bottom of Spellbound:
I’m far from done. View back up from halfway down Phoenix:
Final pitch:
Spellbound plus Phoenix is 1,400 vertical in at least 4 layers plus numerous variations. From the bottom is a road leading gradually uphill to the Black Eagle trail and East River. But after a just a couple minutes walk uphill, there’s traverse track to Black Eagle.
On my final North Face lap I traversed across it to Hawksnest, then Last Steep here:
This also requires a short bootpack up to Black Eagle. From that trail you can see through the trees to both Hawksnest and Last Steep.
The North Face T-bar closes 3PM, but after that is when you want to ski Crested Butte’s other noteworthy expert terrain, the Banana/Funnel sector. West facing, they are subject to severe melt freeze and I had skied only one of these runs on my first visit in 1992. The entire sector was closed in 2001 and 2007.
So after a cruise to the base on Keystone I rode Silver Queen and traversed past several other lines to Funnel. View down Funnel from the top:
About 2/3 of the way down the constricted moguls pass this rock.
View up Funnel from below:
This is a long way from the base area and it’s easy to overshoot. I was lucky to see a skier make a sharp right not far below me where I followed a traverse track eventually leading to a long catwalk to the base.
Thursday was 22,000 vertical of quite fascinating skiing. This was a fairly ideal day for skiing CB’s technical terrain. North Face runs were nearly all winter snow yet you need a warm clear day for the Banana/Funnel sector. Entries and rollovers on the North Face nearly all have rocks to avoid, even with CB at 112% of average snowfall as of March 16. Thus I don’t think fresh powder or bad visibility are particularly desirable on that terrain.
This has been a spring week in Colorado as well as Utah, but with the much higher altitude than northern Utah I expected more winter conditions. However the frontside of Crested Butte faces west and the base area was still bulletproof when we got on the hill about 10:20.
Exiting Silver Queen we saw this sign.
The High Lift is a surface lift and a part in its braking mechanism broke, causing it to slide backwards about 50 feet. With less than 2 weeks remaining in CB’s season, locals suspect that Vail will not expedite getting that part and it will wait until next year.
We skied 4 cruisers on Paradise, which was all winter snow being groomed and north facing. Despite being the obvious place to be on the mountain in the morning Paradise never ran much over a 5 minute lift line. Below Paradise is East River, where the snow softened pleasantly by 11AM.
Liz took a fourth lap on East River while I took a first lap through North Face, then brought Liz for a second.
We exited via the highest exit traverse under the Paradise lift. I did not realize until later that Easy Out was a wider trail one layer lower. Navigation and route finding is the key feature of the entire North Face area. At the top of its T-bar is this map of part of the area.
Next time I wanted to find the Spellbound/Phoenix area. I started down the Schofield Road and soon saw the sign for Spellbound pointing to a traverse track into the woods. The traverse had several step up sections, and in retrospect I should probably have taken my skis off..
In 2001 I had traversed into Phoenix with Adam, but this was the first time I’ve been at the top of Spellbound.
Dead center of the pic is a flat spot on the far side where I saw a few skiers traverse, presumably to High Nowhere. I started out that way, saw the traverse round a corner and drop off with huge rock on immediate right. I exercised discretion and skied Upper Spellbound.
After that pitch I could look back to skiers in High Nowhere.
During the next section I paused to watch a couple more skiers.
View up from bottom of Spellbound:
I’m far from done. View back up from halfway down Phoenix:
Final pitch:
Spellbound plus Phoenix is 1,400 vertical in at least 4 layers plus numerous variations. From the bottom is a road leading gradually uphill to the Black Eagle trail and East River. But after a just a couple minutes walk uphill, there’s traverse track to Black Eagle.
On my final North Face lap I traversed across it to Hawksnest, then Last Steep here:
This also requires a short bootpack up to Black Eagle. From that trail you can see through the trees to both Hawksnest and Last Steep.
The North Face T-bar closes 3PM, but after that is when you want to ski Crested Butte’s other noteworthy expert terrain, the Banana/Funnel sector. West facing, they are subject to severe melt freeze and I had skied only one of these runs on my first visit in 1992. The entire sector was closed in 2001 and 2007.
So after a cruise to the base on Keystone I rode Silver Queen and traversed past several other lines to Funnel. View down Funnel from the top:
About 2/3 of the way down the constricted moguls pass this rock.
View up Funnel from below:
This is a long way from the base area and it’s easy to overshoot. I was lucky to see a skier make a sharp right not far below me where I followed a traverse track eventually leading to a long catwalk to the base.
Thursday was 22,000 vertical of quite fascinating skiing. This was a fairly ideal day for skiing CB’s technical terrain. North Face runs were nearly all winter snow yet you need a warm clear day for the Banana/Funnel sector. Entries and rollovers on the North Face nearly all have rocks to avoid, even with CB at 112% of average snowfall as of March 16. Thus I don’t think fresh powder or bad visibility are particularly desirable on that terrain.
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for nailing an excellent western road trip that I can vicariously enjoy while icing my leg.
