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After a summer of no real skiing, I found myself
visiting friends in Denver Colorado. With a view of the Rocky Mountains
I could see glimpses of snow and starting thinking about skiing
in September. My friends told me we might be able to get some turns
in, and if not, it would be an interesting day out.
In search of
the snow
Sunday dawned cold and a bit damp, a 7am start for the drive up
into the hills. Driving up the Interstate it started getting properly
cold but still damp. From the Winter Park ski area we climbed logging
roads, slipping and sliding around on a now muddy dirt road to Rollings
Pass, through the remains of mining activities long since past.
The parking lot was well over 3500m and it was drizzling hard, but
having got that far we decided to go anyway as it was supposedly
only 45 min to the snow.
 
Rain, rain
and more rain
By the time we reached the snow, we had only climbed a few hundred
meters if that, but we were all feeling the effects of altitude
and drizzle. The sight of a large shelf of the white stuff dropping
into a steep slope was good; a few minutes, some energy bars and
we were set to ski. The run was 45 degrees backing off to maybe
15, with sun cupped surface softened by rain. 800ft of decent is
all we got but there were some nice turns.
At the bottom we suddenly
noticed how hard the rain had become. To get back to our cars we
now had an hour or more hike and scramble, gently down then up -
or so I was told. The scramble was easy cliffs and huge boulder
fields, the hike was mossy grass or dense bush, finally ending on
a thin hiking trail. It was raining so hard no one even considered
putting their trainers on, they just slipped and slithered I their
stiff ski boots.
Mission accomplished
Driving home as we slowly reheated and dried from our drenching
I got hot aches, but I didn't care - I had been skiing in September,
and in Colorado at that. The next day was clearer so I set of to
find out where we had been, heading up to one of the highest roads
in what is known as the Front Range. The Continental divide on which
we had skied was clearly visible with the snow patch known as Skyscraper
Glacier on which we had skied in full view.
Words and Pictures
from Tom
Greenall - Natives Resort Reporter
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