Skiing! In June!

The spring skiing season in Colorado has finally started!

Sarah and I hiked and skied Quandary Peak on Monday. We had one of those great outdoors days when everything goes right and it's wonderful to be alive. So, here's my story about it!

The Mountain
Quandary Peak is one of Colorado's many '14ers,' or a 14,000 foot high mountain. It's well known as a relatively moderate mountain with a great spring ski route on it, so it's been on our list for a while.

The upper half of the mountain, from a nearby pass. We climbed up the ridge from right to left.


A 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado is a bit different from 14ers elsewhere in the US. Our trailhead was at 11,000 feet, so we only had a bit more than 3,000 feet to hike up. For comparison, climbing Mt. Adams in New Hampshire involves about 4,200 feet up hiking up. However, I was breathing a bit harder at the top of Quandary than I usually am at the top of Mt. Adams.

We choose Quandary because:

• I'm happy to hike up anything if I can ski down it.
• Sarah needs to train for a climb of Mt. Rainier at the end of June
• And Sarah hadn't yet climbed a 14er.
  

The Day
This was our third try at spring skiing (the first two got spoiled by lack of sleep and a snowstorm). To make it work, we needed a warm sunny day, but one where the temperatures had dropped below freezing the night before. Monday didn't disappoint.

Sarah taking a breather.



The hike up was pleasant - stunning views, never too steep. We even got to climb a bit slower than we could have so that the snow would have some more time to warm up.

Me at the base of the final snowfield.



I'm a goofball at the summit. It was much colder than this picture suggests.


One-eighth of the view from the summit.

The view was tremendous - mountains in all directions, from Rocky Mountain National Park to Pikes Peak to the Maroon Bells outside Aspen (upper right corner of this photo) to Mt. Elbert (highest peak in CO) and the Sawatch Range and beyond.

Skiing
The skiing at the top was pretty icy (note the ice axe),


but it quickly softened up into some wonderful corn snow.



Sarah opted not to ski the upper snowfield, but had a blast on the lower one.


And sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.