I had been watching the snow forecast all week. Joel Gratz, from Open Snow, was calling for 10 to 20 inches by Tuesday morning. As luck would have it, my schedule was completely open for Tuesday, and before I had the chance to call anyone for a ski partner, I got a message from Austin Porzak (ap snow) saying let's ski Tuesday!

If you don't already know, Austin is working on a ski project to ski the highest 50 peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park during the 2015/2016 ski season. After knocking off Otis Peak, he set his eyes on the south east face of Hallett peak.

I drove up from Fountain, the night before, to crash at Austin's house in Boulder (a.k.a base camp I). Discussion quickly arose about the safety of skiing a big line like this above tree line with all the new snow and wind loading. Dan Sohner and I were already in agreement that the line would probably not go down if we got the forecasted snow.

The original plan was to climb Hallett via Flattop, descend the SE face into chaos canyon, then ski out the canyon back to the parking lot at Bear Lake. However, the impending snow dump had me contemplating the only other alternative: ski back the way we came. Austin was still on board with the original plan and super psyched, but I know him well enough to know that when he sees dangerous conditions first-hand, he knows to back off...usually.

After a good four hours of sleep, I awoke to the sight of ten inches of new snow outside. With the enthusiasm of a child anticipating a snow day, I got on with my morning ritual: eat a thousand calorie breakfast burrito, and drink as much fluids as possible to recover from the night before. I've recently grown very fond of the powdered drink, Acli-Mate for this purpose. I've affectionately renamed it Alca-Mate.

By 5 a.m. we hit the snow covered roads of Boulder with our crew, Austin, Dan, Bjorn Bauer, and myself. On our way out of town, we stopped to pick up our friend John Dickey. It turns out, when John is not busy climbing or knocking Islamic militants off cliffs, he likes to do a little backcountry skiing (you've heard his story, right?).

We stopped at the market in Estes Park to meet with our friend Jesse "body movin'" Levine. Although he is only a few miles away from our destination in the park "as the crow flies," it took him three and a half hours to drive out of the Poudre Canyon, near Cameron Pass, and arrive at Estes Park. He told us of his harrowing misadventures, which included a minor collision with the guard rail. With the difficult part of his day over with, Jesse was ready to get into the park and hit the trail. A superb skier and photographer, Jesse was a welcome addition to our already strong crew. He tends to start off at a moderate pace, but eventually puts it into high gear and can break trail faster than the rest of us can follow in his tracks.

Normally on a pow day, you can expect the Park to be full of skiers. Strangely, we were the only group in the parking lot. Speaking with the other members of the group, I gathered that all of us, minus Austin, were against skiing the SE face of Hallett, which we all assumed would be loaded as hell. Nonetheless, we could still gain the peak, descend our ascent route and probably even find some great powder skiing in the trees.

Feeling good, I lead the pack, breaking trail through fresh deep snow up the Flattop trail. In spite of the fact this is a wide open trail that I had just visited a month previous, and besides the fact that every one of us had been on that trail before, I some how managed to get us lost in the first ten minutes. I must have been on a trail, and I even saw blaze ribbons on trees, but I knew we were headed in the wrong direction.

I told the crew we were off trail. Everyone spread out looking for the correct way to go. As I delayered, my crew took off down a path that had been broken some time before the storm. A couple minutes later I caught up to them, unsure of where to go next. I eventually convinced the group that we should cut our losses and just head back the way we came instead of pushing ahead.

Within another ten minutes, we found the correct trail. We were a bunch of very experienced backcountry athletes who found ourselves immediately lost on the easiest trail in the Park. We had to just laugh it off and carry on...and, of course, blame Mike.

The air was brutally cold, but breaking trail through the deep snow below tree line kept us warm. Above tree line, however, we knew we had to move fast to keep warm. I'm not sure if that was Jesse's inspiration, or if he was just being Jesse, but he did what he always does and blasted off way ahead of everyone.

I found myself lagging behind as I frequently stopped to adjust my layering to keep my core cool, but my face completely covered. With a slow, but steady pace, I managed to catch up with the crew just as we left the bench from Flattop and began the final ascent up Hallet. The others were taking a breather and bundling themselves up tighter, while periodically waving their arms like pendulums to force blood into their nearly frost bitten fingers.

Having already optimized my clothing situation, I pushed on. My toes had long since gone numb.

The northwest winds had completely scoured all aspects of the peak except for the SE. Narrow bands of snow lead down to a bench to the south east. Beyond the bench, the face dropped off steeply. We watched as the winds continued to load the steep SE face.

As far as I could tell, all of us, except for Austin, had given up on the idea of descending the steep, loaded, SE face. The mood was somber. We started to accept the idea that we would have to submit to an undignified descent of the low angle, wind scoured ascent route. No body wanted that. Nobody wanted to ski traverse a mountain that is called Flattop. Especially on a powder day like this.

I downclimbed the east ridge to see if I could spot a line down the not-so-loaded north side, but could not confirm a continuous line. Abandoning the SE line would have been harder for Austin to accept than the rest of us. He has too many peaks to ski to come back for this line in the spring, and it would be a shame if he was forced to ski such an unaesthetic line when he's projecting these peaks.

Watching the high winds carry massive amounts of new snow onto the SE line, I told the group I wasn't even considering descending it. I would just descend the ascent route. I had nothing to prove, nothing to gain. However, Austin was sure it could be done. He had studied the route thoroughly. He convinced the reluctant group to follow him down to the bench and look down the line. If they didn't like what they saw, they would just climb back up. The group followed Austin down to the edge of the abyss.

Bjorn was the last to follow Austin and I told him that if I didn't follow, it was because I descended the ascent route. Bjorn was torn between following Austin and following me. He hung out beneath the summit, within shouting distance of me and in radio contact of the group. Just before deciding to descend the ascent route, I realized I couldn't abandon my group. It wouldn't be a big deal, despite the wicked cold winds, to resummit if they decided to bail, and I knew I should be down there in case Austin decided to solo the face. I dropped in, following Bjorn down to the edge of the SE face.

I reconvened with the group, standing shoulder to shoulder, at the edge of the face. We spent ten minutes or more discussing our options. Jesse, who had skied the line in safe spring conditions, was considering the possibility of a descent, but seemed to be leaning in favor of resummiting. The rest of the group seemed to be leaning the same way, except for Austin. Austin was determined to ski it.

Eyeing the line, I started to consider the slight possibility that it could be done safely. The snow pack looked thin and anchored from where we were to a bench further below. Additionally, we could follow a rocky rib that had minimal snow hanging above. I envisioned small hardslabs releasing beneath us. It wouldn't be ideal, but it wasn't something I thought the best skiers in our group couldn't handle.

I discussed this route with Austin. Needless to say, he was on board. I wasn't quite on board yet since I didn't want to be the guinea pig who first tests the slopes. My other concern was the slopes beneath the lower bench that I could not see. I discussed with Jesse, what we would encounter beneath the lower bench. He claimed that if we made it down there fine, we should be able to find a safe route below, whether we skied deep snow to the right or picked our way through a rocky area to the left.

After a thorough discussion of the route, the time came to make a decision. Everyone except Austin was suggesting we accepted failure and resummited. Ironically, it was me who added the other consenting vote. I knew Austin was going to drop in, with or without us. I was confident that we had a reasonably safe route with a very strong crew. In spite of what we expected on a day like this, we experienced no signs of instability and did not see any evidence of naturally occurring avalanches, recent or otherwise. I recapitulated our route, my thoughts of it, and told them I was on board, if Austin was willing to be the guinea pig to cut the top of the line and slough out any slabs.

Jesse agreed to follow. The rest of the group apparently had enough confidence in our decision making and agreed to follow.

Austin descended, and made the ski cut at the top of the snow and below the rock bands. The rest of us followed from safe spot to safe spot, giving each skier lots of distance. The first real turns were made down from the ski cut to a safe spot on the rock rib. The snow showed no signs of instability.

We gradually became more and more confident with the stability of the snow pack and before we knew it, we were charging each section, full speed. Face shots galore!

By the time we reached the basin below, we all looked like abominable snow men from the non stop, face shot thrill ride.

We knew the ski out of chaos canyon, known for its bouldering and not for its ease of travel, would not be pleasant, but we didn't care. We were deep in our adrenaline high.

A rare and successful winter descent of this face, full of deep powder turns and face shots, must come at a cost. We were thankful for the thrill and for making it out unscathed. We took the mile long boulder field ski with humility.

An arduous exit and one broken ski pole was a small price to pay for a ski descent none of us will soon forget.

I wish a big thanks to everyone on board with this trip. You can check out the Ski RMNP project at www.skirmnp.com or on Instagram at @skirmnp. You can also check out our crew's Instagrams: @aporzak1, @bjornbauerphoto, @dansohner, @dickeyphoto, and @reelmotion.