Three Pass Loop Ski Tour

The Castle Creek Valley, outside of Aspen Colorado, holds a special place in my heart. Several summers ago I had the privilege of residing in Ol’Jack Leahy’s Cabin, a historical structure that is on the outskirts of the Ghost Town of Ashcroft. My cost for “living the good life,” was helping caretakr the historic town and leading naturalist guided tours for Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES). For three months mice, hummingbirds, occasional lost tourist and the Star Peak massif were my companions.

I had a morning ritual of sitting with the cabin door wide open and sipping steaming coffee. Frequently a friendly hummingbird drinking nectar from a gooseberry bush would  fly into the cabin and inspect the place for hidden food. Mice would creep up to the door jam where they would meet the first object I could find to throw at them. The cabin door framed the white gullied ridges of the Star Peak  perfectly. The town’s silver had dried up almost a hundred years ago but I had still managed to strike it rich.  

When my buddy Brian told me about the Three Pass Ski Tour over Pearl, Star and Taylor Pass I was elated.  There is no better way to pay respect to the striking Star Peak range then to circumambulate the mountain. Logistically the tour is an ideal counterclockwise loop begins and ending in the same spot, brilliant. There is no need to shuttle a car and no back tracking on any terrain. Just forward progressive sliding steps on skis.

Overall the Three Pass ski tour is very mellow with simple route finding, especially on a bluebird day. Occasionally loaded avalanche prone snow slopes threaten from above. Avalanche danger is ameliorated by swift progress. Unfortunately our 2011/2012 winter has left a shallow snow pack that has proved extremely sensitive with persisting weak layers of snow near the surface. This concern combined with extremely warm days made afternoon snow pack instability our primary concern. Our goal was to descent Star Pass, the steepest section of the tour, before late morning to avoid threatening wet slides and slab avalanche activity.

We started from Toklat (9498 feet) at about 0645am crusty eyed with stale coffee breath. Lindsay, Brian and I were on ultra light ski mountaineering set ups. Jamie was skiing heavy metal with over 5lbs per foot heavier gear. Brian even had a one piece spandex race suit on for European Style points. It is worthy to note that within a day of completing the tour Jamie had put an order in for ultra light skis. Skiers are skeptical of skinny ultra light skis due to the mass market movement towards fatter and fatter boards. The truth is ultralight skis work and make tours like the Three Pass Loop extremely enjoyable. 

Within an hour and a half we were at the Tagert (11,240ft) and Green-Wilson hut. Skiers spending the night in the Green-Wilson Hut stepped onto the hut deck confused as Brian buzzed by in a single layer of spandex. As we passed the Tagert Hut I couldn’t help but think what a mellow journey ours was compared to Old Billy Tagert as he traveled the same passes running a stage line and delivering mail a century ago. 

From the huts we headed into a blazing morning sun towards the summit of Pearl Pass (12,713 feet). Solar winds blew loose crystallized snow across a frozen sastrugied surface in a beautiful display of dancing flakes. From Pearl Pass we descended in minutes to the Friends Hut. From the Friends Hut we were now on the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse Course (EMGT). The EMGT is a forty mile back country race that starts in Crested Butte and finishes in Aspen. The snow on the first climb from the Friends Hut abruptly ended in a grassy slope. We all questioned if this could really be March due to the lack of snow coverage and unseasonably warm temperatures. 

After cresting Star Pass ( 12,303 feet) we found ourselves on a steep east facing slope. The slope had already soaked up the morning sun’s rays and was turning into a sloppy mess of punchy snow. I nervously scanned the surrounded sloped and saw the scars from previous point release avalanches, wet slides and slab avalanches. It was time to get moving. From the top of Star Pass the EMGT race currently takes a conservative line into the Mt Tilton Trail valley, a contributory of the Taylor River. We decided to follow the historic EMGT course and take a high line slightly north following the old Taylor Pass Divide Road. This route puts skiers shoulder to shoulder with the breathtaking gendarms of east ridge of Star Peak. It was awesome to see these grand gendarms so close. For years I have looked at them from the town of Ashcroft with curiosity. From Ashcroft the gendarms are just barely perceptible as slivers piercing the sky. What hidden climbing routes might they hold?

The historic Taylor Pass Divide Road requires careful route finding through steep avalanche terrain traps and then gently rises into Taylor Basin.  We arrived at base of Taylor Pass to find a patchwork of small receding snow clusters barely connected enough to skin up. The Pass was hemorrhaging snow fast. From the top of Taylor Pass (11,928 feet) one can continue north along Richmond Ridge all the way to Ajax Mountain in Aspen. We chose to turn northwest into the express creek drainage.  Luckily the Express Creek Road was still covered with skiable snow and we casually slide under the clutches of gravity all the was back to Castle Creek.  Somewhere around 1pm we were back at the car sipping frothy PBRs.

Team Carbondale take 2nd Place at 2012 America's Uphill

This past Saturday 5 Carbondale Colorado uphill racing enthusiast came together as a team and took Second Place in the 2012 America’s Uphill at Aspen Mountain. The Race begins at the Little Nell base area and climbs 3,267 feet up Aspen Mountain to the finish at the Sundeck. Racers can choose their poison and race in running shoes, randonee, tele or track skis. At the start of the race it was obvious the fast runners had an advantage as Mike Kloser and his pack pulled away from all the skiers.  As far as the racers in the Heavy Metal Ski Catagory Team Carbondale hung onto 4 out of the top 9 spots. 

Racers gather at the starting line. (From AspenSpin.com)

Four members of Team Carbondale, Sari, Lindsay, Brian and John, are addicted Ski Mountaineer Racing. Even though our ski set ups are markedly heavier then a pair of running shoes we all suffer from the inability to put our skis down.  When not on my skis I go through a separation anxiety like getting left at school for the first time when I was 5 years old. Cory was our team’s only sensible athlete racing in a pair of light running shoes. We are hoping by 2013 we can facilitate her into an ultra light ski mountaineer race set up.

America’s Uphill is a pure love of mountain ascent. Crusty eyed racers pull against gravity for 2.7 miles as the morning sun rises. No matter how fast you go your lungs burn and every one’s heart pounds to reach the finish at 11,212 feet. All Team Carbondale Racers are committed to ski mountaineer racing and have centered a large part of our winters on the sport. We also all love Carbondale where we live. It was a lot of fun to come together as a town team to celebrate an exceptional sport and place.

Wind Horse

There’s nothing to get over the End of Winter Blues like a perfect day of rock climbing on dry granite in gleaming sunshine.  The trail up to the Notch, just outside of Carbondale, CO, was icy and treacherous with sections of post holing in decaying snow.  Several times the rubber of my shoes lost traction on the icy switch backs and I ended up and precarious split positions. I questioned whether old man winter had released his grasp on the crag. Arriving at the base of the cliff I was relieved we would be climbing and bathing in sunlight. 

DR on Wind Horse

 

It seems last summer the local climbing masters were working hard and produced some unfathomable lines, bigger then anyone’s imagination. Of particular attentions was Wind Horse. The route is so colossal, in order to tope rope it and have the belayers remain on the dirt, climbers first climb a pitch on a 60 meter rope and then untie and retie into an 80 meter rope. The climbing is brilliant with a very tricky crux requiring massive crimp strength, pinch strength and invisible feet. The route is so tall one really feels a loss of attachment to what’s below as the arête steepens and breeze stiffens.

Badger on the look out

Climbing at the Notch this past weekend was exhilarating.  From the road the Narrows and Notch looked suspect as loose rock bounced down the hillside and pinged off the jersey barriers protecting the parking lot. It is not until one ventures up the steep hillside that one is rewarded with high quality Crystal River Valley Granite climbing in all grades.  I got home from climbing Sunday evening more exited then a puppy just released from a kennel. I bounced up and down in our one room studio apartment nipping at my wife’s side. This form of climbing excitement wasn’t going to fly with her. She pointed to the front door and told me to go for a mandatory run.  I obediently laced up my running shoes and tiredly dragged my feet over red gravel excited for spring and local climbing.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

DR the "Dry Master" on Secret Sauce

Growing up my parents had a small cottage on a lake. Summers were spent by the water skipping rocks, looking for snapping turtles and watching my dad drink impossible amounts of beer.  The first week of September the cottage would get winterized and all of a sudden weekend trips to the lake would stop cold turkey.  I would withdrawal like a junkie.

I remember this being one of the most emotional times of my life.  I wouldn’t see “lake friends,” for a whole winter. Water skis would be traded for text books. Instead of smiling at friends on their docks while we cruised around the lake in our boat  I would walk around the school halls with my head down waiting to get pushed into a locker by Jeff King. Or worse he would give me a purple nurple so bad my chest would turn black and blue and then brown for two months.

Leaving the lake for the long winter tears would always well up in my eyes and I would feel a deep sadness. Being at home just was not the same. Our lake cottage was sold over 15 years ago and I have not felt this sadness for a long time until the other day. 

Recent winters have been filled with non stop back country skiing. A weak, shallow and terrifying snow pack has left a void this fall in my activities.  I had to look elsewhere for my activity fix.  One cool fall day Jeff Jackson invited me up to the Man Camp for some dry tooling. The name Man Camp should of tipped me off that this was going to be no casual day of cragging and I was going to walk away with a thick mane of hair on my chest.

I had previously only tinkered with dry tooling when necessary on an ice climb here and there. I had actually once owned a pair of Nomic dry tools. Last year I sold them to fund a trip to Denali. My vertical ice climbing tools would have to do.  (Many of you are shaking your heads at me selling my Nomics, I know, I know, it still makes me nauseous. To non climbers selling a pair of Nomics is like having a copy of the original King James Bible and trading it for a back rub.)

Jeff on Jesus Camp minus the ice

 

My first session at the Man Camp was rough.  I floundered up this climb called Jesus Camp. Without warning tools would blow off of holds as I monkeyed bolt to bolt questioning what I was doing with my life. Two prophets below spat out beta as I attempted to climb to the heavens. Like religious devotion, Jesus Camp would become a climb I would repeat a dozen more times. I no longer flail like a bird with it’s wings clipped on Jesus Camp. The climb has become more refreshing to my soul then an artesian water enema. 

My second session at the Man Camp I ventured onto a climb called Secret Sauce. For me and my lack of dry tool skill, Secret Sauce is like taking a 5.8 climber and putting them on the 5^th pitch of a 5.12c crux and lighting the rope on fire.  After hang dogging my way up 35ft my right tool got spit out of a crack like a mouth full of rotten fruit and tagged me just above the right eye. The next day I flew back east to my grandmother’s funeral with an egg sized bloody bruise on my face.

DR on Secret Sauce

 

As addictive as the climbing at the Man Camp is, I think the two guys I get to climb with make it such a sacred place.  I have never had a true sport idols or hero until this winter. I’ve always had a hard time with idolizing an athlete whom I had never met and gotten to know.  The passion, excitement and drive Jeff and DR climb with is like a continuous IV infusion of Red Bull. I climb several grades lower then these two guys. Time an again they patiently belay me offering kind advice and never do I feel judged for climbing so poorly.  Yesterday after a colossal top rope session, that probably gave Jeff an inguinal hernia from belaying me, on his new climb, Thumb Sucker, Jeff said, “Thank you, I really appreciate you going up there and pulling on those holds.”  If a hold in the Man Camp’s soft red sandstone can tolerate “VanNostrand Forces” then it is probably going to stick around until the next time I pull on it. As I was lowered off Thumb Sucker my head hung in disappointment with my performance but Jeff was right there with a lighthearted comment that brought my chin up smiling. These men are the real deal that young athletes should look up to.

 

Sometimes I get home from the Man Camp and my wife says, “What did you guys talk about.”  I’ve learned after 3 plus years of marriage to always answer her questions sincerely, accurately and completely. My mind swirls in blankness. How do we teach women the ways of man talk? I think about making some grunting noises because that will pretty much say everything but I know this is inappropriate. I laboriously draw up conversations from the Man Camp man talk dialogue box and find myself looking into a black hole.  I realize overall we have not said anything that translates into women terms.  But what I know is the three of us liked being there climbing and puzzle solving. And we all enjoyed each others company. Particularly we enjoyed getting to share such a special place with another person.

When DR asked me to strip the draws off of Jesus Camp yesterday a lump welled up in the back of my throat.  Unclipping each draw from the bolt felt sacrilegious. I thought of the lake growing up and the sorrow I felt every time I had to leave the lake for the final time in late summer.  But I know this is just the beginning of many winters.

To Pee or Not to Pee

Mark Gocke Photography

In the last two years I picked up a new sport/obsession called Ski Mountaineer Racing (Skimo racing).  It’s another one of those silly sports that consumes time, money and healthy lung tissue like and ash eating dragon.  The sport involves waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning, donning two pairs of underwear, silk weight base layers and a spandex suit. You then desperately drink coffee in an effort to have a bowl movement before the race starts.

At the starting line racers nervously look side to side at other folks in spandex suits and alpine ski touring set ups astonishingly light. Due to spandex nothing is left to the imagination. Calves and thighs bulge. In my case, spandex flaps in the wind over my tiny legs.

The gun fires and for the next few hours racers climb the side of snow covered peaks with skis on his or her feet. To grip the frozen slopes mohair skins are adhered to the bottom of racer’s skis. At the top of climbs racers rip skins off skis and descent the most technical terrain on the mountain. The skis are so small and light a 5 year old’s skis would dwarf them.  Some of the climbs are broken up with boot packs where races strap his or her skis to a back pack and walk up a snow stair case. No matter the level of fitness racer’s lungs are plagued by blood wheezes and your mind questions your sanity. Why this small group of races do this I still ponder. It’s one of the most difficult personal struggles I embark on and I think this is what makes it so addictive. 

Mark Gocke Photography

This past weekend was Race the Divide, part of the COSMIC series, hosted by Monarch Mountain Ski Resort. The race included 4800ft of climbing and 4 ski descents of Mirkwood Bowl. The wind was a cold and icy spandex piercing beast.  The race was fun but I was hindered a bladder that had a mind of its own. 

About 5 minutes before the race I knew I was in trouble when my bladder instantly filled like it does when I sit in the 7 Eleven park in lot and drink big gulps.  Urination was not an option. If I peed I would miss the start of the race. I decided to brave it. For the first climb the excitement of the race kept my mind off my brimming bladder. Hydrating and taking in nutrients throughout the race is key. But a full bladder makes you want to do anything but chug water. Fortunately, it was so cold that when I dared sip my water my water bottle was completely frozen. A sense of relief over took my body.

By the second lap my bladder felt more pressurized then an air compressor and it was impeding taking fast steps forward.  I kept thinking “John, just stop and pee.” But I stubbornly inched forward slowing down from my already pathetic “race pace.” The forth climb led to desperation due to altered homeostasis.  I was at the breaking point of this cruel form of self imposed torture. I would of confessed anything to make the torture stop. It was time to weigh the options.

1. Just let it go man
2. Hold it for another half and hour and require bladder reconstruction.
3. Do what a normal person would do, pee.

 Even though I struggle through every Skimo Race I am still competitive and stopping to pee was the ultimate sign of defeat. I watched the red spandex clad racer in front of me fade away up the skin track. I had been working so hard to catch him. I stepped out of the track into the soft snow. I struggled to unbuckle my light weight microscopic backpack waist belt. Then I realized my spandex suit zipper stops at mid abdomen, far to short for a convenient whiz. Big time design flaw. My next obstacle was digging through three layers of underwear and base layers to find my peeing apparatus. At one point I pulled a plastic bag out of my crotch. I though “what the #$@1 is this doing here?” Oh yea, at 5am when I got up and heard the Salida wind shaking the house I thought I could use all the protection down there possible.  Remember in Austin Powers when he takes a 60 second whiz?  Evacuation com shhhhhh….evacuation compl ….shhhhhhh….evacuation complete. You get the point. 

Several minutes latter with everything zipped up and put away I was back skinning up hill. My legs were able to swing forward again freely without the dull pain of a full bladder. Endurance sports are new to me. Most of my time is spent hiking at the pace of a sloth to the base of a climbing crag. I’ve never been fast at anything. Growing up running from home plate to first base required a delay of game. No coach would ever give me the pull of the ear and swipe of the forehead signal to steal a base. I’ve never been fast. It’s a new challenge for me and not going to come natural. But I’m not going to give up.

I can’t imagine the top Skimo racers stop in the middle of a 2 hours race to urinate. It seems I have a lot to learn about hydration and electrolyte intake for endurance events. Any suggestions or shared wisdom for us endurance neophytes on prerace hydration would be much appreciated!

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