If You Don't Like Pictures of Mountains, This May Not Be the Post For You

Facebook is a rather neat thing. It reunites lost friends and lovers. It provides a window to peoples' uncontainable insanity through awkward status updates regarding religion and relationships.  And most importantly, it proves once and for all that America's public school systems have left 98% of our country functionally illiterate.

It also has a kick-ass photo sharing function, so you may well have already seen these pics of my recent Aspen adventures. But now I'm adding narrative, which brings the photos to life! Enjoy.

Ten days ago, resident avalanche expert and all around swell guy Brian McCall got tired of passively waiting for the arrival of winter, and decided to do something about it. He invited me to join him on a climb and ski of Marble Peak, an 11,300 foot summit about two hours southwest of Aspen.

A view of our goal from our parking spot. Marble Peak's summit behind the trees.

Here's Brian doing what he does best: testing the snowpack for stability so we can avoid getting caught in one of these...

...a small pocket avalanche off the east face of Marble Peak's summit. The snowpack was in excess of 120cm at the top, and with the 20 cm of new snow bonding poorly to the existing snow, there were several signs of recent activity.

After 2,300 feet of mostly easy skinning, we arrived at the summit on a typical Colorado bluebird day. Here's a view towards Raspberry Peak, a line I've been eyeing up for quite some time but have yet to ski.

Buttery turns were found off the summit, a huge surprise for this time of year. Brian and I have made our first turns together three years in a row, and we've had good luck on all three occassions in finding unexpectedly good powder.

Brian reaping the rewards.

A final veiw back towards the summit. As you can see, we weren't the only ones with the idea to ski Marble Peak in recent days.

On Sunday morning, I took Poochie Brett out for a quick introduction to any self-respecting Aspenite's favorite form of exercise: going up.

The snow line was creeping ever lower, but I thought we could still get a decent hike in on a local trail, and start to acclimate Brett's legs and lungs to life at 8,000 feet.

Of course, no hike would be complete without Maci, as she led the charge up the 1,500 foot climb. We encountered some snow at the summit, which she used to cool off.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Brett is quite the photographer, and he lugged his equipment up the single track in hopes of finding some quality scenics. He succeeded.

Here's Brett the Jet with the twin summits of Mt. Sopris behind his left shoulder.

Maci making friends with the camera lens.

The day before Thanksgiving, Brian, Brett, two pooches -- Maci and Mickey -- and I headed out to Snowmass in search of soft snow.

I've gotta' say, having a photographer along on these trips is pretty cool. I would never have thought to snap this shot. They call this place Aspen for a reason, you know.

Mt. Daly in the distance.

Brian and I skinning up the western ridge of Snowmass. Brett getting the lighting just right.

A photo of our skintrack, the coolest aesthetic output of any backcountry adventure.

Mickey breaking trail, followed by yours truly, followed by Maci.

Early candidate for blog picture of the year in the "non-Ryan" category. Garrett Peak in the background.

Maci looking regal for the camera.

After two hours of breaking trail through boot-deep snow, I get to enjoy the down.

Maci getting after it, while still listening intently for lurking predators.

Finishing our descent as the snow turns thin.

One last hero shot of the pup.

After the big effort, a well deserved rest for a boy and his dog.

On Saturday, Brian needed to get up above treeline to check out the snowpack for his avalanche forecasting. We opted for the summit of Mt. Baldy, a 13,100 peak accessible from the backcountry gates atop Snowmass ski resort.

The summit of Baldy is the small, triangle shaped peak in the left-center of the photo.

Recent winds had scoured the ridge free of snow. Here's Brian making do with what we had.

Snowmass Peak, one of the Elk range's 14,000 foot summits, in the back center of the photo.

A shot of Capitol Peak, another of Colorado's "14ers."

A view of Garrett Peak from the ridge to Baldy.

Brian skinning the final stretch before we had to switch to booting. As you can gather from the pictures, the skiing was awful. Fortunately, no photographic evidence of my many falls on the windslab and breakable crust exists.

You know boys...they always want to be just like their daddies. Ryan has been rather jealous of my recent winter adventures, so Lauren and I dressed him in his burliest technical gear and stuck him in the fridge for three hours. Good times.