Posts tagged splitboarding
Posts tagged splitboarding
VagaBond Ranch
As the idea of a New Years backcountry trip rolled around with my friends we realized that we were very late if we wanted to get a spot in the popular 10th mountain hut systems. So I started looking around for other backcountry huts and accommodations in Colorado and came across the VagaBond Ranch site. This is a large piece of property that is located outside of Granby Colorado with multiple luxuries cabins on it. These are much different than your typical 10th mountain hut, as in the summer this ranch is run as what appears to be a high class mountain get away with a hot tub, swing pool, volleyball court, and even baseball field. But for the winter the accommodations are spectacular and you really feel like you are staying in a high class Aspen house
We headed out on New Years Eve day with a crew of 11 people. We were quite the motley crew as this was some peoples first backcountry hut trip and we were making the trek on a variety of splitboards, telli skis and even snowshoes.
The skin up to the property is not a bad one it is just under 4 miles with hardly any elevation gain. To add to this ease it follows a snowmobile road until you reach the private property so the trail is very hard packed, and we did not come across a single snowmobile so you did not feel like you were going to get run over.
We stayed in the Cascade cabin, which has a great overlook of the property as well of much of the skiable terrain surrounding you. From here we could see Cascade Peak, and Ruby Mountain which both look like they have great ski terrain. Off of Cascade there is some good mellow open skiing and longer tree runs. Ruby looked like it had some great tree skiing as well as a open cirque that if the conditions were right would be awesome.
As we explored around we found that the snow pack was very unstable and there was an ice layer underneath all of the great powder. This was the determining factor that kept us off of the open exposed terrain on Cascade where we had originally planed to play. We also noticed that there was a big fat crown from an avalanche down one of the chutes.
Instead we spent the next few days touring up thought the trees east and north of the houses and found a few good gullies that would allow for some great low angle skiing and really good powder. Also we found some really good runs just behind the house as well as just east of it, these allowed some great easy access snow and would make for great night runs.
As for an overall experience of the VagaBond Ranch I thought that the accommodations were extremely nice and the approach was really mellow. As for the skiing it was also mellow it does not allow you the front door access that some of the 10th mountain huts do. Even when the snow is stable the higher peaks will make for a fairly long day. But we still enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and I would recommend this for a mellower trip.
You can find the website for the Ranch in my links area and as always when playing in the backcountry use caution and knowledge.
Cheers!
Mount Alice Approach RMNP
Last weekend a friend and I headed out to check out Mount Alice and the surrounding areas for possibilities of backcountry skiing and snowboarding. This is a 13000-foot peak near Thunder Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park accessed from the Wild Basin trailhead. We had heard that that there is a couloir from the top of Mount Alice possible called the S-Chute that should be able to get our blood pumping. (picture 1)
Unfortunately due to my busy school schedules my backcountry and mountaineering schedule has been limited the past few weeks and this was going to have to be a fast push as my friend needed to be in Denver Saturday night. We left the winter trailhead Friday night around 5pm hoping to get in pretty far in the limited light that we had left since Thunder Lake was over 9 miles from this point.
The trail was already fairly packed most of the way so we were able to move fairly fast even with our camping and ski gear on our backs. As the sun set we were feeling pretty good and pushed on until around 8pm. When we finally stopped at the North Saint Vrain campsites to set up camp. This was about 5 miles in and around 9500 feet and since we were fairly tired we thought it would be a good place to set up camp and call it a night.
The next morning with the warm sun and clear sky we were feeling lazy and didn’t leave camp until around 11. This proved to be a poor choice as the trail from the point of the camp on was completely unbroken and took a bit of time for trail finding as it wound its way up through the woods.
We still made good time and covered about 2.5 miles by 1 in the afternoon where we accessed the ridge that would take us out of tree line and to thunder lake and Mount Alice. Unfortunately for us as we came to the point where we should have been able to see Mount Alice and Thunder lake we ran into the start of the weather and could not even see the outline of Mont Alice.
Due to weather and the fact that we would have to be doing some 4th class climbing once we reached the peak we decided that we should call it a day and started back towards the car enjoying some nice powder in the trees. But overall I think we had a good exploratory adventure and found some possibilities of really good backcountry areas for another time. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of this to share but the ridge accessed just North-East of Bluebird Lake as well as some chutes off of Tanima peak should offer really good lines and even great tree skiing.
Sorry for the lack of descriptive pictures on this post I will do my best on future adventures to have content that can help you get a better idea of the route and trip details.
Cheers!
