After skiing Ice Mountain and North Apostle, we decided to keep our RV camp on Clear Creek Road near Buena Vista for another night. We were parked right at the trailhead for Emerald Peak, 13,904 ft., another Colorado Centennial on our list, so we didn’t have much reason not to hit that next.
Even though we like to poke fun at Roach’s descriptions of the routes on Colorado’s high thirteeners, we did approach the Refrigerator Couloir on Ice Mountain, 13,951 ft, with care.
In the forefront of our thoughts this day were the victims of the tornado that struck Oklahoma earlier this week. Tragedies such as this serve as a reminder of how precious life is, and how it is too often cut short by unexpected events. Our thoughts and prayers go out for the victims of the tornado.
After Jones Mountain we headed home, wrapping up a fun week down in the San Juans. The break was short though, and after only a single day at home, we loaded up the Spyder RV and headed out again. Our goal– the mountains of the Sawatch Range near Leadville.
We wrapped up our San Juan road trip yesterday with a surprisingly fun ski descent of another Silverton area Centennial– Jones Mountain. I say surprising because we had been catching glimpses of Jones from up high in recent days and could never clearly observe continuous snow from the top.
Who wants to be a Vermillionaire? Well, today seven of us stood on the top of Vermillion Peak at 13,894 ft. feeling pretty lucky to have a chance to ski down the Vermillion Dollar Couloir and to tag the highest peak in San Juan County.
As our fourth peak in as many days, we skied Gladstone Peak on Thursday, via Sunshine Mesa and Bilk Basin. Apart from the grunt work required to climb into and ski out of Bilk Basin (steep, punchy snow with willows and deadfall), the day was pretty cool.
Teakettle Mountain located in the San Juan range is widely considered one of Colorado’s hardest Centennial Peaks. Bad rock and a mandatory rappel off the top contribute to the mountain’s difficulty. However, as skiers we found this to be the exciting part.
Ouray impressed us all. Accessing the mountain was straightforward and the ski lines from the summit down into the Devil’s Armchair were long and sustained. The Bristlecone Forest alone is worth a visit.
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