While Dallas may rank lower in elevation when compared to its peers, the community consensus ranks it as the most challenging Centennial summit to climb. So in a strange bit of numerical irony, #100 in elevation ranks first in difficulty.
We’re three weeks into 2014, and with a stretch of beautiful weather and a good amount of snow already this season, Christy and I climbed and skied UN13811 (as in “unnamed summit that’s 13,811 feet in elevation”) last weekend. And thus began the 2014 Centennial Skiers season.
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.
We skied the east-facing ridge coming down from the summit. Date: May 18, 2008Team: Christy,...
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