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A lot has been written in ski magazines about Silverton Mountain, the ski area 6 miles away from Silverton, Colorado where lift tickets cost $140, there’s no running water, no restaurant, you’re required to have an avi beacon, shovel and probe, they only have one old double chair lift (which originally is from Mammoth) and no groomed runs. However, little has been written by what I’d call regular skiers with the exception of 32 and Below and Go Skiing. Wanting to add to the collection of regular skier stories here’s ours.

We first heard about Silverton in Warren Miller’s film, Children of Winter, and were definitely intrigued by a ski area where long hikes were required but if you got lazy there was an A3 B-Star helicopter to help you out. I don’t know where our ski-store owning buddy JF caught wind of Silverton but this past fall he sent out an invite for a late February trip. Almost immediately a bunch of us RSVP’d. As we got closer to the date plans for some folks changed but Shawn, Ming, Dave, Andre and I were committed to giving it a go.

Granted, I was a little cautious. The adventure wouldn’t be a cheap one (you need to fly from Seattle, to Denver, to Durango and rent a 4WD SUV to get to Silverton), the weather at least in the pacific north west had been awful (really awful), there have been a few negative reviews, but most importantly, would it live up to the hype?

We pulled the trigger on the trip pretty close to our planned departure. And to some degree got lucky since the mountain was fully booked the weekend we were planning to go (they limit the number of skiers per day to 100? so you need to book in advance if you want to be sure of getting up the mountain) but a large group canceled and we got our names down on the list for Friday, Saturday and Sunday with two heli drops on Saturday to mix things up.

Turns out we made a good call going to Silverton as it got even more hype over the Olympics because last year it was home to Shawn White’s Project-X (check out that link for some great videos of the area.)

We had an early morning flight out of Seattle, met up with Dave in Denver and then got into Durango around 1 where we loaded up our Dodge Durango:

And headed to Walmart and MacDonalds. We had a blast at Walmart (thank-you deli counter lady!) and of course bought way too much food beer (we never would have thought that would have been a problem).

From Durango it was about an hour to Silverton, a small town, with no stop lights and where driving a snowmobile is a perfectly acceptable way of getting around.

Shawn booked us accommodation at the Snowed In Lodge, which while seemingly pricey, turned out not to be that much more pricy than the rustic hotels on Main Street. Seeing as I never clicked on the links sent out about accommodation I was surprised to pull up to a log cabin that sleeps 16. Our guide the next day also told us its the second nicest place in town (the year before, Shawn White stayed at the nicest place in town :) ). Outside there were 5 Saab 900 Turbos owned by a Saab mechanic (why is there die hard Saab mechanic in Silverton??)

While the Snowed In had Direct TV they didn’t have MSNBC and their Internets are slow because they don’t have fiber so we went looking for a bar showing the Women’s gold medal hockey game and ended up at Mother Plucker’s.

Silverton Day 1

Here we go!

You start the day checking in at base camp which is nothing more than a tent. There really is no running water at this “ski resort” but they do have the ability to charge your credit card :)

Then you sign your life away several times:

Next you head to the parking lot with everyone else and the guide’s form groups of 8 and trying to form “moderate” groups and “fast” groups:

Once you’re paired up, meet your guide (“Ronbo” was our guide), you get a safety briefing. All this can take some time (be patient, wear warm clothes). Then you head up the only chair lift they have which was imported from Mammoth (they paid $20k for it):

At the top you load your skis on your back (bring a good pack) while your guide checks in and gets permission for where to ski (they carefully coordinate all the runs down to maximize the farming, powder and safety):

And start hiking!

On our first run, “Sunset”, Ming tragically lost his helmet cam. He had it mounted to his board but it popped off when he tomahawked.

And even though it hadn’t snowed in a week there was still plenty of fresh tracks.

At the base of almost every run you either take an old shuttle bus:

Or school bus back to the lift:

After a twenty minute hike for the first run, we did a major hike for our second run, all the way from 12,300’ at the top of the lift to 13,487’. It took us a little over an hour…

The hike had some scary bits, and for the steepest part they had a rope to hang on to. I got “lucky” at one point when the ski loop on my Dakine pack blew. I felt it go and was able to crouch down fast enough to prevent my skis from rocketing down 4000′ feet.

At the top we had lunch:

We ended our day with a run down 100 acres. So only three runs the first day but it turned out that was plenty with the hike being the highlight.

The second highlight was drinks in the now smelly base camp tent:

In the tent we were joined by our trusty guide Ronbo who loves Lindsay Vonn and never lead us down a bad line all day:

We ended the day again at Plucker’s who normally closes at 8:30 but we convinced to stay open late for the Canada hockey game :).

Silverton Day 2

We started off with a warm up run and then headed over to the heli:

After an epic run down Grassy Shawn thought a small feature had a snow landing behind it but got drenched when it turned out to be a creek:

We suited Shawn up with our spare gear and everyone tried to clean his pants off (including Jen one of the owners of the mountain who just happened to be waiting for the heli).

Fortunately the creek we e later encountered at the end of the day they had a small “bridge”:

Our guide, Rooftop, advised us on not just where the powder was but he gave us a game plan for the night.

We started with the rum distillery Montanya (which was packed but closed at 7!) followed by dinner at Pickle followed by drinks at Pride of the West. Needless to say, Silverton does not have much of a nightlife and at every venue we saw the same people everywhere.

Silverton Day 3

We had only booked two heli runs for Saturday but when Sunday rolled around we were still on a heli high and booked three runs because when you book three or more runs you get to go to “zone 7″ which opens up a whole new set of landing zones.

After a warm up run down Delores, and a repeat of Grassy, our group plus a couple from Los Angeles met up with Aaron, the other owner of Silverton. Here he is surveying the scene:

He took our group up to the top of a couloir where we must have done okay because at the bottom Aaron pealed our group of four off (our guide, Rob, advised us that Aaron only likes to things: 1. Helicopters and 2. Powder), convinced us to do a total of four heli drops, in his understated way mentioned we were now on the “A Team” and preceded to take us to the sickest runs (tattoo, hero sandwich) I’ve ever skied.

When all was said was done Aaron tried to talk us into signing up for his Alaska RV + heli adventure in April. Tempting, but I think it’ll have to be next year.

Before leaving town we stopped to get our photo with the avalanche meter:

Thanks to Aaron and Jen for an awesome ski experience, Rob and Ron, our trusty guides, and everyone we ran into along the way (everyone in Colorado was very friendly).

Matt’s Quick Guide to Silverton

• Keep your expectations in check and get ready for them to be blown away! If you’re hoping to do 30,000 feet of vert you’ll likely be disappointed. If you’re looking for a few quality runs, you’ll have a blast.
• Hike up to Billboard at least once
• Do at least 3 heli-drops so you get access to more landing zones and avoid the 1-dropper crowds
• Ride with Aaron or Jen if you get the chance!
• Don’t skip out on beers in the tent afterwards
• The altitude will likely affect you if you’re from sea level like us
• Be nice to your guides. Ours were awesome.
• Bring lots of water, remember, there is no running water
• Skip the Diamox. I tried it but it made me nausea.
• Be prepared for sleepless nights. The altitude messed with most of our sleeping abilities.
• I think two days is the perfect number of days to hit up Silverton. One day hiking, one day heli.
• Saturday is their busy day
• Last year they sold out almost every weekend, this year has had more availability

Photos

• Mine: Traveling to Silverton
• Mine: Silverton Day 1
• Mine: Silverton Day 2
• Mine: Silverton Day 3
• Dave’s photos

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Determined not to let our shitty weather prevent us from skiing, on Saturday Rob, Andre and I headed up to Snoqualmie for some laps in the rain. However, once we saw the conditions Andre opted for the bar while Rob and I got soaked for an hour or two. Yes, we are ski’s in the rain guys.

After drying off with a few rounds at the T-Wolf bar we headed over to the tubing center to meet up with Ming, Alicia and Ben who were there for a birthday party. However, we didn’t like the idea of paying $20 to join them tubing so over it was to Rob’s cabin for dinner. With a supply of mediocre beer courtesy of beer of the month club we ended up crashing early and slept in late. (A pitch black upstairs sleeping loft made it hard to wake up.)

With more rain Sunday Andre lobbied to head back to Seattle but Rob was eager to try out his new backcountry skis so at noon we started to pack up and eventually convinced Andre to lead us up Kendall Stump.

Anticipating a slow descent we didn’t head all the way to the top and turned around at the clearing:

As predicted the conditions sucked. While we had skis on I don’t even know if I’d call it skiing! But it was nice to break-in my new boots.

More photos.

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I’ve bumped into a number of dream ski vacations recently in the New York Times, Globe and Mail, etc. It’s never too soon to start planning next’s vacations :).

Self-propelled:

• Selkirk Mountain Experience near Revelstoke BC (G&M article)
• Sol Mountain Lodge in BC (NYT article)
• Bear Mountain in BC

Heli:

• Elemental Adventure has a trip to a Volcano in Russia. (G&M article)

Other:

• Powder Mountain in Utah has a number of different ways to get to the top including chair lifts, cats and helicopters (NYT article)

What adventures am I missing? :) Clearly need some European ones, something in South America, touring in Antartica…

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On Sunday Crystal Mountain got 17″ of new and we had an EPIC time. One of my top ski days EVER*.

Ming and I were on the road by 6:25 a.m. and were there before 8:30. We thought this would be early enough to catch a first chair but no! They fired up the chair early. We will need to wake up earlier next time :(.

Here’s a view from riding up Chinook:

Our first run down under Rex was actually quite bad. The snow was variable depth with a definitive crust hiding underneath (I also started with my boots too tight). And then at the bottom of Rex we encounter a massive line and I started questioning not going to Steven’s Pass.

After riding up Rex we headed to Green Valley where we encountered another massive line, fortunately at this point Northway opens up and we get a GREAT run in. We dropped into Northway Bowl into literally chest deep powder.

Being one of the of the first down Northway, since it opened late, we had an epic run. Second run down we encounter a massive line. I took two photos of the line. Here is looking towards the lift:

And here are all the folks waiting behind us:

Some folks skipped the line and headed down on their own (read how on the Crystal patroller blog).

After waiting in such a line you may think you should either go to lunch or ski somewhere else, and many did. We did not. On our third run down we encountered no line and in fact didn’t hit another line at Northway all day. This one traffic jam scared every one away ALL DAY. Which meant that even on our last run of the day (note, we skipped lunch!) we were still waist deep in fresh lines. It was incredible! Run after run it was face shot after face shot. We were drowning in snow (by the end of the day we were both soaking wet).

Here’s a photo from our second last run:

And here’s a video of me loving it!

And one of Ming:

Now all fun must come to an end… At ~2:30 we got to the bottom of Northway to discover they had shut it down because of wind (read more about wind holds at Crystal), along with almost all the other chairs on the mountain. Unfortunately the only way down from the bottom of Northway is to pull a McGarty and post hole out or option 2, which is what we did. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the parking lot and get shuttled back to the base for beers and a late lunch.

More videos and more photos. Someone else’s blog post about the day.

*Matt’s top ski days:

• Today!
• Heli-skiing with Rk Heli Ski in Panorama, BC
• Last Sunday at Steven’s Pass
• Cat-skiing at Steven’s Pass
• Bluebird-skip-work-type-powder day at Baker a year or two ago

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If you ski five or more days a season you need a pair of serious powder skis.

Because every season you have the opportunity to catch a few days which will be truly epic. Yes, you can suffer through with your every day all mountains but for it to be a truly epic day you need equipment to match the conditions and its worth every penny.

This season, my days were the 2nd of January, which was the day after they had closed the pass (photos from pass closure day & photos when it re-opened), and again this past Sunday when we got a big weekend dump. Other years its been skipping working to go skiing during the week after they’ve re-opened the hill after it has been closed due to heavy snowfalls. Or it’s heli-skiing in Panorama or cat-skiing in the Cascades.

Fortunately this Christmas I had bought a pair of Dynastar Huge Troubles (from my buddy JF of Gords) with Marker Baron bindings (from Evo) and it’s changed my skiing life. Both days I felt like I was skiing in a Warren Miller film and its all due to the skis. You can hit anything and have seemingly endless energy for hitting the pow because you’re floating on top and not fighting your way through like you would be on a pair of all mountains.

The other secret is to WAKE UP EARLY. Let me tell you, I did not want to wake up early on Sunday because it was daylight savings and we had gone drinking Saturday night. None-the-less, we woke up at 5:45 a.m. for a conference call on ski conditions and were on the road by 6:30 which put us in line just as the chair lift was winding up so we could get a good run of first tracks in the morning sun.

More photos. Note that we were too busy skiing to take any good photos of us riding knee deep snow :).

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This weekend we hit up Alpental for one last day of resort skiing this season.

As you can see there is lots of snow left:

Many dressed up:

Tecate Chutes was the best run of the day:

The rest of my photos…

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This weekend the guys are up at Whistler for the Telus Festival. Thursday afternoon we arrived to fully stocked condos (thanks JJ) and then that night we went to the pro photographer showdown before drinking too much, skied Friday (it was cold with a little fresh snow), then a fashion show last night (too much ski gear, not enough summer wear) and today it’s hot and sunny and Ming is cooking up some bacon and eggs (I didn’t sleep last night, too much Redbull at the Beagle.)

In other news I’m way behind on blogging. I still need to post photos from Ben’s 30th birthday weekend at Hood Canal and the trip Chelsea and I took to Steven’s Pass last weekend.

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Friday night I caught the 6:20 flight to Reno. Of course I screwed up the date when I bought the ticket and had to go through the stress of paying a change fee, flying stand by, etc but did end up catching the flight I wanted :).

I then caught a cab to North Star (supposed to be forty five minutes away) which was a bit of an adventure since the cab driver had forgotten his chains, chains were required, he then got lost trying to find his buddy with chains,… The trip ended taking a little longer than it should have but eventually I made it. Funny enough the cab ride was the same cost as my flight (pre-change fee.)

The next day we skied at North Star (6″ new), the resort some at Redfin referred to as the Snoqualmie of Tahoe. However, after skiing there I don’t think that’s a fair characterization. North Star doesn’t have a lot of steep crazy runs but it does feature lots of rolling easy nicely groomed blues, appears to be very family friendly, and features a pretty new plush village. Since there was some nice dry new snow I was able to get in some good runs even late in the day since the major of folks kept to the easy runs :). The tree skiing was also pretty nice.

Here’s Katrina, her sister Suzanne, and Peter:

At times it was dumping:

At other times it was sunny:

At lunch there was a big band:

Apres ski had a skating rink and outdoor lounges similar to Vegas bars:

Sunday Katrina and I headed to Squaw (2-4″ of new). Squaw, unlike North Star, appears to be stuck in the ’60s when they held the Olympics. I wouldn’t work there just because their staff uniform is so dated (sorry no photo.) But they did have some steep runs. I spent a lot of time on KT-22 and Headwall and we had lunch up at High Base Camp which features a hot tub, swimming pool and skating rink at 8200 feet. We also lucked out with a three and half hour drive back to San Francisco.

More…

• Photos from North Star
• Photos from Squaw Valley

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If you watch just one, check out day 3.

Day 1: No heli skiing just fast groomers.

Day 2: First day of heli skiing! Sadly our group leader lost his camera.

Day 3: Second day of heli skiing!

Thanks JF!

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After staying up almost all night releasing a new version of Redfin last Wednesday a group of us from Redfin headed to Whistler Thursday night. We were hoping to leave early but of course did not leave the city until 6 PM. Fortunately we made great time and got to Whistler in a record setting four hours. The next day we spent a great time on Whistler riding a ridge repeatedly off Peak chair. Of course the only reason some of us ride is for apres ski and at 4 PM we hit Merlins for round one of beers and nachos:

For round two we headed over to Merlins as we had ski in/out accommodations on Blackcomb. There we got round two or beers, nachos, wings and poutine.

Before:

Close to after:

Having sampled nachos across a wide variety of Whistler venues I have to say that GLC has the best quality and that Merlins has the most quantity.

Unfortunately having consumed so many nachos and beers our team was mostly asleep by 9 PM!

The next day was beautiful sunny day and we got some great runs in on Blackcomb. Here’s Brandon who is about to marry our marketing whiz, Ellie (I also happen to play hockey with him):

Later in the day we headed to Whistler where Donald had a nice jump:

And of course afterwards we headed to Merlins for two rounds of nachos:

We then ended the night with Sylvia’s Wii and Settlers of Catan.

A note to our investors: Don’t worry this was an employee paid for trip unlike our competitors Squaw Valley junket :).

Related:

• My photos
• My videos
• Alex’s post
• Rob’s post

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