Wind power

I grew up praying for wind in the summer time and begging for calm days in the winter. This past Saturday, I think I may have changed this trend. Growing up in Hood River, Oregon with two parents involved in the windsurfing and kiteboarding community it was hard not to try the two sports. I would mainly consider myself a windsurfer, but I had multiple kiting adventures growing up as well. I am excited now to and kite-skiing to my list. This is a perfect combination of a wind and snow sport.
Saturday morning I got a call from my friend Scott Ryan asking if I wanted to get on a kite today, of course I jumped on the opportunity. The wind was going to pick up around noon so we met up and drove out to Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest man made in Colorado. The Mesa is completely frozen over in the winter time and has higher winds than Gunnison, making it the prime location for kite skiing and snowboarding.
Scott set me up and I was off in no time. It took me a bit to get the hang of flying a kite again after 4 years but once I started to get more comfortable with it I began to have so much fun. I never reached this point of fun when I was kiteboarding on the river back home. I knew at this point this wouldn't be my last attempted at this sport.
About 20 minutes later I looked back behind me an realized I was pretty far away from the launch site; I figured I should start heading back up wind. This is when the panic mode hit me because I couldn't remember how to work my way back up wind. Minor detail I probably should have thought about 20 minutes prior. So there I was in the middle of the frozen lake, too far to walk back to the launch site and at a horrible pull out location. Finally Scotty made it down to me and began giving me instructions to get back up wind. However, the wind picked up and I was well over powered. I was having a blast going down wind, but there was not hope for me to get back up. We organized a shuttle plan and I continued down the lake. Luckily it was only a 10 minute detour for Scotty and he was back out kiting in no time. I decided the 9 meter was a little too big when the boys informed me they were full power on their kites. I played photographer for the rest of the day and enjoyed watching Scott catch some good air!

Scott Ryan and Lloyd Tucker

Scott 

Three days later and my upper body is still killing me from this skiing activity. I can't wait to get back out there soon. As for the mean time, I am watching the snow stack up on the pow cam at CB and so jealous of anyone who gets to ski tomorrow! Go make some turns for me!

Skiing the San Juans: An Overdue Post

About a month ago, elven of us backcountry enthusiasts met up for a hut trip in the San Juan's. We had four great days of skiing and 3 awesome nights with an unforgettable crew. 

The crew waiting for a ride after a great run down Cemetery.

The first day a group of us took a short skin from the top of Red Mountain Pass. The top was windy and hard packed but the path we took down was filled with light power. Will Marsh, organizer of the trip and normally a snowboarder, had a bit of a ski binding issue. We were lucky that Matt had a similar issue once before and knew exactly how to tape it up so Will could ski the rest of the way down. It was quite the disappointment of the first day, but we are lucky Will didn't have to boot-pack out. We had a short hitch hike back to the cars, then we loaded up and began the trek into our first mountain hut, Mountainbell. What a luxurious hut. We had a beautiful view of US basin and it was waiting for us to ski.

Will's unfortunate event

Hulling in the necessary essentials

The next morning we started off early and headed out towards the basin. We took a short lap down the back side of MCminiamins, then trudged our way across the basin and up the other side. We had an incredible decent down the basin. Everyone was wanting more so we headed back up and dropped down cemetery on the back side of US basin. This was the best run of the day; an open tree field filed of perfect powder. It was so great that a group went out for seconds and ended up hiking back to the hut after dark. All reunited again, we had a gourmet dinner and had way too much fun the rest of the night.

Check out those mountain! -Riely 

As we were headed to the top of Red Mountain pass on the morning of day 3 we saw a CAT pushing around snow. Jokingly we asked if we could have a ride and unexpectedly they said yes. An hour later 3 of us were taking the first ever ride on Ouray Scenic Jeep Tours CAT rides owned. It was a wild ride at times I think we were all a bit nervous we might tip forward, backward, or sideways. luckily we didn't know until after the ride that it was the drivers first time maneuvering a CAT. We were dropped of about 2/3s of the way to Red Mountain 3 and began the final trek. The backside was tempting us and we decided to drop down a ridge line and ski into Silverton Mountain Resort. I have never been to Silverton, so I am proud to say for my first time, I skied into the resort. It couldn't have been a better day. We scoped out lines for the next day, we were coming back for sure.

First Cat Ride EVER! Matt Clark and Cody Beach

Cody making some turns

We had a fun time that night doing beacon searches in the pitch dark. This event lead to waking up to soaking wet socks, pants, gloves, and jackets. Being the last day, we all said our good byes and headed off in different directions. Five of us packed up to go ski some of the lines we had seen the day before. It was an interesting skin up in tight trees up a ridge line. One of our group members, Logan, was having some major skin issues because he made the mistake of leaving them on his skis the night before. He was building up snowballs the size of basket ball on the bottom of his skins. What a trouper. We made it to the top and took a good rest watching the helicopters drop people off in various spots on Silverton mountain. I can't wait to make it back and ski the resort some day. We skied down some incredible powder filled shoots. There was only four of us and it was a blast cruising hard with these guys. I was worked from keeping up with them. By the time we got to the bottom we were tired and hot. But the two boys managed to get a second burst of energy to hit a step down on the way to the town of Silverton. After some good shots we headed back to Gunnsion.

Cody Beach

As we took turns driving back we recalled the trip, it was an adventure. I feel very lucky to have been a part of the trip. We had a great group of people and made some incredible turns. The San Juan's of the Silverton area is definitely a place I would recommend for back country skier. I felt as if I was on top of the world!