Jacob Wester

Day 2 in Telluride and here’s the report!

After being hit with some serious elevation and sunburn throughout yesterday, I ended up going to bed at 8 pm last night, but not getting much sleep due to a headache (every time I go on a pow trip I remind myself to “drink more water this time”), so I was a bit of a wreck this morning. Fortunately for me, we we’re taking the chairlift, which doesn’t open until 9 am, so after more than a few glasses of water and some cups of coffee I was alive again. Unfortunately for us, the Colorado spring has really started to set in with temperatures up in the 50°F range, or 12 °C, and this under sunny skies from 8 am until 6 pm. This means high altitude slush skiing!

The team headed up to the top of the ski resort of Telluride, from which we we’re setting out on a 45 minute hike up Palmyra peak. Definitely felt the altitude towards the top, as the peak is just above 13.300 feet, or 4.053 m above the sea. After skiing some fun little lines off the back, and a 40 minute skin track up the next ridge, we we’re looking out over the town of Ophir, CO, which sits confidently in the valley right below a south facing snow-filled bowl that funnels out right above the village, population 158.

After a couple thousand vertical feet in the now slurpee feeling snow, we all felt some relief to get out of there before it was getting too late in the day, since the heavier the snow gets, the greater the avalanche danger. After hanging out at our photographer Brett Shreckengost’s house in town for an hour we saw several south-facing slopes with some serious wetslides down them. Good thing the north faces seem to be almost unaffected so that’s where we will be looking over the next few days.

Here’s a visual overview of the day:

Seth Morrison and filmer Constantine Papanicolaou walking to the chair, 8:50 am

On the way up the lift we had a pretty good view of one of our options for another day, the little Wasatch face, with legendary colouirs like the Y, the Grandfather, oblivion bowl, the elevens and hairy banana. Definitely got some butterflies over these.

Hiking up Palmyra Peak. Way in the distance you can see the desert.

Seth leading the way up the last part of the bootpack, to the peak at 13.300ft. Photo by Greg Strokes

In the upper left corner is the lift station, and the start of the bootpack. Behind my back is some of the sickest terrain I’ve seen in the US, 45 minutes from the lift. Telluride is pretty radical.

CP and seth doing a quick interview on the top of the hike. In the background is Silver mountain.

Finding my way down towards the skin track. Still decent snow. Photo by Greg Strokes

Dropping in for some fun party turns with Seth. Photo by Greg Strokes

The face from below, fun little rock garden.

Hiking time again, skins on. At this point it was getting ridiculously hot under the 11 am sun.

After the sweat fest of the second hike we we’re overlooking the town of Ophir beneath the majestic Silver Mountain. Classic south-facing spring run.

Finding fun features on the way down wasn’t hard. Got to get upside down on this trip today! Photo by Greg Strokes

Cool wooden shack just below the run. This place is authentic, that’s for sure.

Seth and Greg loading up the truck after a long day.

Then I got to hang out with the Brett’s cat, who just happens to be the coolest cat in the world:

Mountain lion of Ophir.

Group photo. Make sure to notice the facemask burn. Higher SPF tomorrow, I think. Photo by Greg Strokes

Next on the schedule is dinner in the house and an early sleep tonight, leaving on another solid skin tour at 7.30 am tomorrow. Stay tuned for more adventures in the Telluride backcountry!

Jacob

~ by jacobwester on March 15, 2013.