Though Silverton has a 1,900 vertical lift purchased from Mammoth, it is in nearly every way analogous to snowcat skiing.
Here is the tent base lodge, with outhouse just to its right. The partially buried bus at upper right is the rental shop.
Here co-owner Jenny Brill gives us the usual warnings about hazards, following the guides instructions closely, etc.
Few runs lead directly back to the lift so they send a pickup truck or old van as a road shuttle.
Here NASJA Midwest President Frida Waara and our guide Stan cross a creek to reach one of the road pickups.
Many runs are also accessed by hiking above the lift, which tops out at 12,300. All of this results in modest vertical totals that would max out at about 15K with a fast group and optimal conditions.
Now for the good news: terrain is consistently steep, very expert oriented, even more than Mt. Bailey and the Canadian operators I have visited and much more than any other U.S. cat operator. They have done a good job communicating this, as very few of their 80-per-day skiers have not been capable. 80-per-day shows no evidence (via old moguls as at Telluride) of compromising the untracked powder/corn experience. Due to avalanche control issues terrain tends to be opened gradually after storms. There is a good balance of alpine vs. trees, though the trees are tighter than in Canada. There were also snow flurries in the morning, when the storm had long since concluded at Telluride. Snowfall is likely over 300 inches per season, particularly with the anecdotal evidence that it is skiable in December/January when Telluride's steepest runs often aren't ready yet.
The specifics of our day's skiing were pretty tough. The 9 inches new were Colorado light and dry over a well-frozen base. At that steepness you were likely to hit bottom on part of nearly every turn. It would have been much easier on last week's corn snow.
Only Adam (shown here on our first run) skied this stuff fluidly, so midway through our second run they moved him up to a faster group with Colorado locals.
Frida and her husband Ron Thorley (shown here on our 2nd run) had never been cat skiing and were somewhat intimidated by the combination of terrain and conditions. I assured them it was ALL conditions, as they are elite racers, as fast as Adam skis for UCSD's team, with me an embarrassing 25% slower. Ron's rental bindings were somewhat defective and he had several pre-release crashes before the guide finally got them working well.
I loved the terrain but had to ski very deliberately rather than just "flow down the mountain" as in most of my 13 days of cat skiing.
The Canyons rep Katie Eldridge (shown here with Ron on our 3rd run in the trees} was on a snowboard and seemed somewhere between me and Ron/Frida in comfort level. We had 4 runs total (the last one included a hike) for 7,800 vertical that was far more tiring than our 26K days at Aspen and Telluride.
Each run seemed to be improved over the previous as the guides got a feel for the conditions. Our 4th and best run was along the left tree boundary of this NW facing bowl, Sunset Boulevard. The previous week the center of the bowl was a high speed corn cruiser similar to Mt. Bailey in 2000.
Standard cost is $119 per day. If you don't have your own, you must pay an extra $20 to rent a pack with transceiver and rescue gear and $30 to rent skis. We all had to rent skis because Telluride provided only a Chevy Blazer for 6 of us (including the driver) to ski Silverton. This was resolved by Katie driving her own vehicle, but we still couldn't take any skis other than Adam's K2 Fours, which weren't suitable for Silverton but necessary as he was flying home. Adam also got in 4 runs, but the rest of his group got a 5th after he had to leave for Durango airport.
Here I am with founders Aaron and Jenny Brill, who met in college at Pitzer in Claremont, California and did most of their college skiing at Mt. Baldy! They were there in good years 1991-94 (see my http://bestsnow.net/scalhist.htm History of Southern California Snow Conditions). Baldy had a record 12 feet in March 1991 and the 22K of untracked I skied 3/21/91 remains a personal record (barely over my 2 heli days at TLH). 1993 and 1992 were the 3rd and 4th best overall SoCal ski seasons since I began keeping records in 1976. They viewed Baldy and the New Zealand club areas as models for Silverton.
The current cost of Silverton is much less than most cat operations, especially if you have your own gear. Interestingly, there is a very cheap ($125 per day) cat operator only 10 miles away, El Diablo at Molas Pass. But our driver has skied there and said terrain is intermediate and "benchy." He said you might get stuck if the snow is really deep. The frozen subsurface we battled was due to the prior 3+ week heat wave and should be rare at Silverton's altitude.
Note to Frankontour: Silverton must be the ski area of your dreams!
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