Peak(s):	Mt Royal - 10998 Mt Victoria - 11628
Date Posted:	01/26/2014
Date Climbed:	01/25/2014
Author:	skiingrock

Dirty Book Couloir, Humming Bird Gully, Mt Victoria, Coinslot
Fun in Frisco I missed the week of big snow because i was in Montana skiing but coming home to actual snowbanks and snow everywhere felt awesome. But with the avi danger so high i could not go out and play Also we had an avalanche fatality, so i was not itching to get out there to fast. This winter has been hit and miss for snow conditions and weather conditions around the summit county area. But with about 2 weeks of clearing weather, the snow conditions getting a little safer it has lead us to an unbelievable week in Colorado!! So much blue sky and perfect weather to be out playing in the outdoors. With the avi reports dropping into moderate for below treeline i decide that i was going to stick to the trees. By staying below treeline i did not have to worry to much about the wind slabs and cross loaded slopes, but there was still the risk of the Deep slabs. In the pits that i dug throw out these few days i saw that the upper part of the snow pack is stabilizing very well but that doesn't matter because its resting on SHIT depth hore (typical Colorado). So with that in mind i new i had to still play it safe! Mt Royal With all my friends training for ski racing i decided to ride the stage from Copper to Frisco and skin up the Mt. Royal summer trail. I Started up from the trail head at 10:00 and got to the top at 11:01, not to bad for just cruising up. When I got all my stuff ready i had no idea where i wanted to ski I heard of people skiing the East facing glades so i headed that way. AWESOME SNOW!!!!! As i was skiing the glades i had no collapsing, woofing, shoot cracks, or post holing. I got half way down and decided to check out the gully they call Humming bird! I should have stayed in the trees!!!!! It was just to tempting. The first 10 turns where awesome!!!! Then about half way down i went to turn and next thing you know i was just sliding down a rock face. Nothing crazy happend, just put a nice rock grind down one side of my skies Skied the rest with no problems and was back on the summer trail looking up at my tracks in AW. With it only being 11:30 i decided i might as well go up and try Dirty Books since it was right there. I had some quick food and water, threw the skins back on and took off. Such a nice day, i was skinning up in a t-shirt, it felt like spring :/ Once again it took me just about an hour to get back to the top. I had never skied Dirty Books so i was a little scared dropping into it for the first time and i had no idea what to expect. I started off again skiing the glads up top. Once again no collapsing, woofing, shoot cracks, or post holing so i was feeling confident in the snow. As it start to steepen and turn into a couloir i shut it down to re-asses the snow pack. I dug another pit and had the same results. Knowing that it was sorta stable up top and i wasn't breaking into the depth hore i geared up. As i went into it i did 3 big snow cuts that involved me jumping and stomping on the snow to make sure i was not going to trigger the depth hore. With no activity i pointed them down the hill and had some epic steep pow couloir turns. After a few turns i had to shut it down as i got to the choke point. I side slipped threw it and traversed over to the right side of the couloir. If you stay left you can keep skiing for a little but then it cliffs out. On a good year the cliff is about 10 to 15 ft. With it being early season and not to good of snow i had no need to drop a 30 footer by myself into rotten snow. So i skied out the bottom of the right couloir. Once again I found myself back on the summer trail looking up in AW! It is only January and i had just skied 2 epic little lines, UNREAL!!!!!! Mt Victoria That night I got a call from my friend Henry saying that he had the next day off to come play! He said he wanted to go ski mt Victoria. All i could think of is how I had just hiked that trail twice and how I did not want to hike back up it again. Plus we would have to go farther up, but hey why not. The next morning I met Henry around 9:30 at the trail head. Another beautiful day but lots of people out and about. As we were gearing up we ran into 4 other groups. One going to ski J shoot, another skiing Hummingbird and Dirty Book, and 2 other groups going up to ski mt Victoria. As we got to the top I new we were pushing the limits a little. The avi report said that the biggest problem was wind slabs above and near treeline. That is exactly where we were and what we ran into. But with are 3 groups working together we were able to set a safe skin track avoiding the hazards. It took us about 2 hours to get to the weather station on top of Mt Victoria. One group skied skiers left trees off the top, we picked the middle trees, and a solo guy kept going up towards peak one, I have no idea where he skied. After getting some food and water (monster energy drinks and dried mangoes) we geared up. Knowing that coming off the top we where going to hit wind loaded sloped we tried to stay in the trees and on low angled aspects. NO PROBLEM!!! Just another awesome ski for January! All the way down just fun mellow tree skiing in nice stable snow! The only thing about this trip is that at the bottom the trees get very tight and it flattens out. You have to do a little bit of bush waking and pushing to get out of there, snowboards would hate this part. Coinslot OOOOOOO Coinslot! This is probably the biggest mountaineering ski adventure for summit country! After 2 long days of skinning up the same trail three times I decided I would finish my week off on it again. I was suppose to meet my friend Jenna in Frisco to go ski somewhere. She ended up pulling the plug and staying at home because of a sickness. Now most people say skiing back country alone is very risky. Yes that is very true but i knew where i wanted to go, i had an idea about the snow pack, and was confident in what i was doing. In all honesty I hate taking people into Coinslot because it scares the shit out of me. I did it solo so if I fucked up it was on me, not on someone else! With all this being said it went very smooth and I had no problems. Once again it took about an hour to get to the top, 20 mins to walk down the rocks to the edge of the cliff. I repelled in and found out that it was hard snow with very low avi danger! Being by myself and there not being a lot of snow in the couloir i took it nice and slow. I worked on my hop turns all the way down. 100 ft from the bottom there is a cliff band with some trees that get covered on a good snow year. Well it hasn't been the best so to be safe i set up a anchor on a tree. Leaving 2 slings and a carabiner in the couloir was worth it! After that everything went smooth and skied back to trailhead. All in all it took me about 3 hrs round trip. Here is a quick video of the trip. (this is my first ever gopro edit so i need to work on my filming and editing skills but you get the point) Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Dirty Book Couloir, Humming Bird Gully, Mt Victoria, Coinslot

Fun in Frisco

I missed the week of big snow because i was in Montana skiing but coming home to actual snowbanks and snow everywhere felt awesome. But with the avi danger so high i could not go out and play

Also we had an avalanche fatality, so i was not itching to get out there to fast. This winter has been hit and miss for snow conditions and weather conditions around the summit county area. But with about 2 weeks of clearing weather, the snow conditions getting a little safer it has lead us to an unbelievable week in Colorado!! So much blue sky and perfect weather to be out playing in the outdoors.

With the avi reports dropping into moderate for below treeline i decide that i was going to stick to the trees. By staying below treeline i did not have to worry to much about the wind slabs and cross loaded slopes, but there was still the risk of the Deep slabs. In the pits that i dug throw out these few days i saw that the upper part of the snow pack is stabilizing very well but that doesn't matter because its resting on SHIT depth hore (typical Colorado). So with that in mind i new i had to still play it safe!

Mt Royal

With all my friends training for ski racing i decided to ride the stage from Copper to Frisco and skin up the Mt. Royal summer trail. I Started up from the trail head at 10:00 and got to the top at 11:01, not to bad for just cruising up. When I got all my stuff ready i had no idea where i wanted to ski

I heard of people skiing the East facing glades so i headed that way. AWESOME SNOW!!!!! As i was skiing the glades i had no collapsing, woofing, shoot cracks, or post holing. I got half way down and decided to check out the gully they call Humming bird! I should have stayed in the trees!!!!!

It was just to tempting. The first 10 turns where awesome!!!! Then about half way down i went to turn and next thing you know i was just sliding down a rock face. Nothing crazy happend, just put a nice rock grind down one side of my skies

Skied the rest with no problems and was back on the summer trail looking up at my tracks in AW.

With it only being 11:30 i decided i might as well go up and try Dirty Books since it was right there. I had some quick food and water, threw the skins back on and took off. Such a nice day, i was skinning up in a t-shirt, it felt like spring :/ Once again it took me just about an hour to get back to the top. I had never skied Dirty Books so i was a little scared dropping into it for the first time and i had no idea what to expect. I started off again skiing the glads up top. Once again no collapsing, woofing, shoot cracks, or post holing so i was feeling confident in the snow. As it start to steepen and turn into a couloir i shut it down to re-asses the snow pack. I dug another pit and had the same results. Knowing that it was sorta stable up top and i wasn't breaking into the depth hore i geared up.

As i went into it i did 3 big snow cuts that involved me jumping and stomping on the snow to make sure i was not going to trigger the depth hore. With no activity i pointed them down the hill and had some epic steep pow couloir turns. After a few turns i had to shut it down as i got to the choke point. I side slipped threw it and traversed over to the right side of the couloir. If you stay left you can keep skiing for a little but then it cliffs out. On a good year the cliff is about 10 to 15 ft. With it being early season and not to good of snow i had no need to drop a 30 footer by myself into rotten snow. So i skied out the bottom of the right couloir. Once again I found myself back on the summer trail looking up in AW!

It is only January and i had just skied 2 epic little lines, UNREAL!!!!!!

Mt Victoria

That night I got a call from my friend Henry saying that he had the next day off to come play! He said he wanted to go ski mt Victoria. All i could think of is how I had just hiked that trail twice and how I did not want to hike back up it again. Plus we would have to go farther up, but hey why not. The next morning I met Henry around 9:30 at the trail head. Another beautiful day but lots of people out and about. As we were gearing up we ran into 4 other groups. One going to ski J shoot, another skiing Hummingbird and Dirty Book, and 2 other groups going up to ski mt Victoria. As we got to the top I new we were pushing the limits a little. The avi report said that the biggest problem was wind slabs above and near treeline. That is exactly where we were and what we ran into. But with are 3 groups working together we were able to set a safe skin track avoiding the hazards.

It took us about 2 hours to get to the weather station on top of Mt Victoria. One group skied skiers left trees off the top, we picked the middle trees, and a solo guy kept going up towards peak one, I have no idea where he skied. After getting some food and water (monster energy drinks and dried mangoes) we geared up. Knowing that coming off the top we where going to hit wind loaded sloped we tried to stay in the trees and on low angled aspects.

NO PROBLEM!!! Just another awesome ski for January! All the way down just fun mellow tree skiing in nice stable snow! The only thing about this trip is that at the bottom the trees get very tight and it flattens out. You have to do a little bit of bush waking and pushing to get out of there, snowboards would hate this part.

Coinslot

OOOOOOO Coinslot! This is probably the biggest mountaineering ski adventure for summit country! After 2 long days of skinning up the same trail three times I decided I would finish my week off on it again. I was suppose to meet my friend Jenna in Frisco to go ski somewhere. She ended up pulling the plug and staying at home because of a sickness. Now most people say skiing back country alone is very risky. Yes that is very true but i knew where i wanted to go, i had an idea about the snow pack, and was confident in what i was doing. In all honesty I hate taking people into Coinslot because it scares the shit out of me. I did it solo so if I fucked up it was on me, not on someone else!

With all this being said it went very smooth and I had no problems. Once again it took about an hour to get to the top, 20 mins to walk down the rocks to the edge of the cliff. I repelled in and found out that it was hard snow with very low avi danger! Being by myself and there not being a lot of snow in the couloir i took it nice and slow. I worked on my hop turns all the way down. 100 ft from the bottom there is a cliff band with some trees that get covered on a good snow year. Well it hasn't been the best so to be safe i set up a anchor on a tree. Leaving 2 slings and a carabiner in the couloir was worth it! After that everything went smooth and skied back to trailhead. All in all it took me about 3 hrs round trip.

Here is a quick video of the trip. (this is my first ever gopro edit so i need to work on my filming and editing skills but you get the point)

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

scramble	sweeeeet 1/27/2014 7:21am yeah!!! liked your faces in the selfies and the wump wump in the video way to get it!
FireOnTheMountain	love that trail up royal 1/28/2014 2:53am switchbacks?? thats for pansies i'm really diggin this TR.
jmibarra	no biner 5/9/2014 12:30pm but i saw those slings there the other day and grabbed them. let me know if you want them back

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