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Matt Halbakken and I headed for the Twin lakes trailhead after a quick stop in Leadville. We had originally planned to approach the Colorado Trail from the north, but the North Halfmoon road was not plowed. At 10:30 we were finally skinning up the packed trail to the east ridge route. We made steady progress, but the hours drew by quicker than we realized.
There was no snow on the ridge to ride, but we continued anyway. I anchored my board to the rocks. This ridge has a couple of very convincing false summits.
Orange spindrift glowed above us just ahead, cueing that it was getting late. The wind was ferocious at the final horizon. I let the cold bite through many layers of fleece, polyester, and nylon to view the sunset over the entire state. I could clearly see all the way to Uncompahgre. La Plata was an impressive gnarled fist to the south. I ate a bunch of frozen blueberries and oats before we headed back down towards the Arkansas Valley in the diffuse twilight. We only managed a few turns down to treeline before realizing that we would not have enough light to really explore the forest down to the Colorado Trail. We had no headlamps, and could not afford to stray from the trail. The trail had iced over into a bobsled course, and was a little steep to ski for a splitter like me. There was no moon, but the stars were incredible. We walked the frozen trail down in the dark to avoid getting hurt. Feeling our way along with poles, and occasionally stepping off the track and postholing. We finished safely by 11:00 pm. Matt took some excellent photos at the summit, my film broke off inside the camera, so I only have a few from the skin up. Maybe someday he'll dig those up for me. Meanwhile, enjoy this watercolor I tried.
j~
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
That‘s pretty crazy that you were out until 11 PM, but glad you made it back victoriously. I‘ve learned the hard way not to forget my headlamp too. So did you park at the very beginning of the North Halfmoon Road and hike all the way in?
We used Hwy 82 to access from the South. It was just under 12 miles and 5k, so I also learned the 1mph rule. Wish we could have ridden from the summit, but it was pretty thin up top, and even then the Box Creek Cirque would have ended in a pine box given the new wind slabs built on that aspect.
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