Backcountry Skiing Mt Trelease - 2012

Today was our first backcountry trip this season. Snow was slow to show up in Colorado and by the time it did in January I was in the middle of a project at work that required 6 days/week of my time. Now that I'm done with that its go time. In normal fashion Sean and I decided to make a ski day that much better by skipping work to do it. Today was also our first backcountry ski trip since Brian went to Tampa and Rich moved back to England...sorry bros.

We headed up to Mt Trelease again...I think it's becoming our go-to spot. When we toured here in Dec 2010 we didn't see any evidence of avalanches but discussed the possibility of the top pitch sliding. Check out this pic of a slide from 29 Jan 12. (click to enlarge) Holy shit!

Photo by LSteele on backcountrycoalition.com

Sean skinning up skier's left of the parking lot

The trees on the lower portion skier's left of where we climb out of the parking lot seem more user friendly than where we have dropped back to the lot the past two times. We'll try to head left the next time but from what we've heard you cliff out if you go too far left.

Sean approaching the bottom of the avalanche run out

Sorry for the low quality video...this is my point-n-shoot camera

Here is a link to Sean's hero cam footage:

http://vimeo.com/37359571

After our second lap we dropped back to the car and hit the road for Idaho Springs to stop at Tommyknockers for lunch and a couple beers. We're hoping to hit this mountain again on consolidated spring snow and ski the top pitch from the ridge where it didn't slide in Jan.

Pour one out for our homies...

To get there:

From the Denver/Colorado Springs areas - head west on I-70 until you are almost to the Eisenhower Tunnel. Take exit 216 where there will be a dirt parking area on the north side. Park against the cliff band, this is the base of Mount Trelease.

Route:
Leaving the parking lot is fairly obvious because there aren't many options to skin or snow shoe past the exposed dirt face. Once through the initial steep entry there is typically at least one good skin track to follow unless there has just been a fresh dump of snow. In that case, break a sweat to get first tracks! There are a lot of well spaced trees on the upper portion of the mountain but it does get a little choked as you drop close to the parking lot.

Precautions:
This area might be close to the highway but safe backcountry travel habits and gear need to be used. There is a good mix of terrain and potential avalanche danger so be prepared. See the first photo in this post if you don't believe there is avalanche terrain.