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LOU DAWSON, the grandmaster of Colorado ski mountaineering, took a much more patient approach to his 14er ski project than most of us Johnnie-come-latelys. As a result his guidebook is replete with highly aesthetic ski routes that seem to materialize out of the mist, like the mythical Brigadoon, once every hundred years. The west side of Mt Democrat is one. Even in Dawson's guidebook, the photograph in the route description shows it with no snow, and although i have looked at it any number of times I have never seen it in skiable condition.
Until now, that is. Somehow, in spite of a dry winter, our mountains have ended up even more thoroughly plastered with snow than in the record-breaking winter of 2011. And the ephemeral ski route on Democrat's west face looks like this:
That photo was taken on a clearer day than when Gerlinde and I skied it. In fact our only view of the summit was from the trailhead:
We expected a storm to roll in by around noon but decided we would give it a shot. We skinned up the valley, swapped skis for crampons and ascended the apron under a half-clear sky:
View across the gulch:
Onto the face proper:
Around this time the intermittent clouds and fog decided to become more serious:
Pressed for time and visibility, we put our skis back on perhaps 200 feet below the summit. We had been ascending a shallow couloir that tops out at the summit (rather than the one described by Dawson, which ends up on the ridge just north of the summit). Our chosen ski route was the deeper couloir to the south of our ascent route, so we started down and then traversed over the dividing rib.
This route can be entered directly from the summit. It is a spectacular ski run, culminating in a narrow choke at the second lowest rock band. (It disappears behind the wall to looker's right where Gerlinde is standing in this photo.)
If you haven't yet made plans for the 4th of July, my guess is that this line will still be skiable. Now, I wonder what the north side of Antero looks like...
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Glad to see someone have a chance to ski that route, we attempted that in what looked like "in" conditions about 8 years ago and post holed up to our waste at the base, only making it up to about 12,800 or so before turning around. I’m really happy for you to have done it, so cool, this spring is whacky cool.
Congrats on a great route. I did this one a bunch of years ago, but I had to ski down a ridge from the summit and then billygoat around and across to get back into the couloir. Glad to see someone get it in better style. Can’t beat the parking situation for this one!
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