Ridgway Hut Trip

I usually try to post a trip report shortly after I get home but I'm delinquent on this one...no excuses, just been lazy. This was not a huge snow year for Colorado but Sean and I found plenty of coverage in the San Juan mountains near Ridgway. We had booked two nights in the Ridgway hut (http://sanjuanhuts.com/) far in advance and hoped for the best. We drove to Ridgway from Colorado Springs Friday and had dinner at Colorado Boy Brewery (great pizza, pretty good beer) and then tent camped at Ridgway state park before getting an early start up county road 5 while the snow was still frozen.

The snow was a little deeper than I thought. In all fairness, Sean warned me to stay left. Good thing we brought shovels. This little hiccup was worth the miles we didn't have to walk/skin on the mix of dirt and snow.

The debut of the gear sled, "Shirley", started with less coverage than hoped. I swear there is snow ahead. Once we hit the trees the snow was fairly continuous. Shirley and I quickly skipped over the honeymoon phase and moved straight to the "I hate you, you dirty little bitch" phase. Once I fixed the tie downs and better secured my 10 PBR cans in a bag of snow things were good again.

Sean taking a break to laugh at me going downhill with the sled.

I lost track of how long it took to get to the hut...around 3.5 hours I think. We had the 8 person hut to ourselves and we took our time unpacking and eating before putting skis back on to explore above the hut.

We climbed longer than expected to gain the ridge south of the hut. At least it was easier going without the damn sled dragging me down. Above tree line the snow was mostly wind slab even after a full day of spring sunshine.

The views of Mt Sneffels and Blaine Basin were awesome. This would have been a nice place to hang out with my camera gear at sunrise or sunset if I wasn't such a lazy slob.

By the time we funneled back down to the terrain trap we followed up through the trees we were tired, it was late afternoon and definitely time for some bourbon and PBR in the wood pile. Sean was more than mildly irritated by the fact the hut had NO chairs so we had to sit on pieces of firewood. It helped that it was sunny and very warm (shorts and t-shirt warm) with close to no wind...not bad for 10,200ft.

Looking back at our ski route above tree line. 

On Sunday morning we took our time getting started to give the snow a chance to soften up a little. We followed the gully again but took the left branch instead of the right we took the day before.

The trees opened up and we got great views of Reconnoiter Peak and the playground we would be skiing all day. Looks windy. We climbed up to the left shoulder of Reconnoiter below the summit block. We had to negotiate some steep wind slab to get there.

From here we traded skis and poles for crampons and ice axes.

Hanging out on Reconnoiter Peak

We climbed back down to our skis and skied into the tree line. We both shot some video of each other skiing the main face but it was too embarrassing to post. The wind slab with the occasional punch through was more than my limited skiing talent could handle. Once we got closer to tree line the snow was soft and consistent so we did some laps and hit a natural jump there about half a dozen times each.

Looking back at our route again

Time to head back to the hut for bourbon and beer again...and steak. That's right, steak, we don't mess around.

Sean cooking the steak the manly way...on the wood stove with smelly boot liners hanging overhead

We woke up Monday morning to light snowfall. We didn't waste a lot of time packing our gear and hitting the trail toward the car. We made good time getting out and Shirley cooperated nicely. It has been 70-80 degrees on the Colorado front range so we might be done skiing for the year. I guess it's time to start thinking about backpacking. Skiing Marble and Raspberry peaks will have to wait until next year.

To get there:

From Colorado Springs area - head west on 24 to Buena Vista, turn south on 285 and west on 50. Follow 50 all the way to Montrose and turn south again on 550 to Ridgway. Ridgway state park is on the west side of 550 just north of Ridgway if you are interested in camping there.  Go into Ridgway and take a right onto 62 at the Shell station. Go to the end of town (this won’t take long at all) and take the last left at the edge of town – Amelia St.  After about a ¼ mi and a couple stop signs turn right on CR 5 (dirt).  CR 5 is well maintained year round for the first ~5 mi. At the winter road closure there is a row of mailboxes and suitable trailhead parking for a few cars. We were able to drive a few miles past this on a mix of snow and mud since it was late March.

Route:
Continue to follow CR 5 to the Dallas trail which is marked with the standard forest service wood sign.  Turn right and head up a steep pitch.  If you are staying at the Ridgway hut you will have an info packet with a route description and crude map…bringing a trails illustrated map wouldn’t be a bad idea. The road, trail and hut are all marked on it. The total mileage from the winter trailhead is ~6.5 mi.  

Precautions: As always safe backcountry travel habits and gear need to be used. There is a good mix of terrain and a lot of options if you want to get buried in an avalanche. Late spring usually offers safer snow but the area can still be avalanche prone. In the words of the guy who booked our hut reservation: “Yeah, late March is a good time to go man, you should have fun, the kill factor is way lower.”