Early January Berthoud

Dobish throwing down on a windlip

So after last weeks harrowing adventure, and with the weekend approaching I had two goals, 1. I still wanted to get out and go touring and 2. I wanted to do it with a super safe group and in a place I felt comfortable in, so when Dobish asked if I wanted to head to Berthoud for some Saturday turns, I gladly accepted.
So after having waged a battle with the hordes of January Front Range Skiers (often times the most dangerous part of backcountry skiing in the Front Range, and denying a car lap to a group of skiers and snowboarders sans Avy gear (typical procedure of mine and another reason I sometimes seem to avoid Berthoud) we arrived at the top parking lot around 10ish or so and headed up for a quick lap in Floral park on a beautiful Saturday morning. Fifteen minutes or so later, we were at the top of the descent and shooting down into the perfectly pitching tree laps that is Floral Park. While not exactly sublime and yielding snow, it was variable and soft enough in some spots that it made all the work worth it, and for fifteen minutes of work followed by about 1,000 feet of descent, OK I'll bite.

Fritz enjoying the amazing lack of wind up in Current Creek

Next up, we headed up the west side with the intention of skiing Meadows to the upper 90s. Meadows was slightly wind affected, while the 90s was slightly tracked, however we found some killer snow to be had in patches. It's a shame sometimes that a place like Berthoud pass is so well known, if no one else knew about it, we would have had untouched pow for weeks to ourselves! The snow still was light soft and fluffy in some areas and deep enough to make the Bibby's very happy. We skied about halfway down Triple Chute and I stopped in the middle of the run to shoot Dobish, cutting a new line on the far skier's right chute.



Tree skiing!
Artist's talk about suffering for their art, and I do have to say that I'd imagine very few of them know the sensation of getting a huge pow shot right in the face for their photography. Which is exactly what happened to me after the last two shots.
Having skied the 90s we decided to head back up the 110s to see if there was any leftover goods from the earlier week's storm.
This particular location of Berthoud holds a special place in my heart. It's one of the first places that Brandon and I ever toured up 3 years ago after our on snow Avalanche Safety class with FOBP () and one of my first memories of feeling your lungs about to burst with the effort of the climb up a windswept peak and being rewarded with knee deep untracked powder down the pitch and not another soul in sight. They don't call the area Perfect Trees just because it's meadow skipping at it's very best. It's the kind of mellow, sublime tree skiing, that every turn seems to trigger a serenity deep in the skiers soul and in a place that sometimes can be accused of having lost it's soul when too many people found it, well, it's a good reminder that sometimes stoke from your home can be the best.
Up at the top we stopped for a well deserved lunch, Fritz had decided to break out the jetboil and several ready made soups, which were much enjoyed by all.



Ramen is awesome says the Dobish and the Hilary!

Perfect trees was sun soaked and powdery, fresh and yet dappled with bits of sun kisses on it's mellow slope. In other words, it skied really, really good. And asides from a miscommunication between Dobish and myself regarding skier vs. photographer, it was excellent.
At the bottom of perfect trees the pitch steepens and goes over a cliff band, where we found recent evidence of two skier triggered slides, a reminder that the avalanche dragon is constantly lurking, even on a bluebird day that seems like nothing can go wrong. Fritz dived right in to check out the scene, while the three of us remained on watch. Once he had ascertained that the tension had been relieved in the slope, the three of us came over to check out the findings. You could see that the slope had slid on the icey basal layer and that the skier had triggered it by skiing over a rollover and hitting a weak spot that had collapsed the snowpack.


Dobish and Fritz investigating the crown
Notice the track at the feet of my shadow, that's the day or two old track of the person who had skied the slope that had triggered the slide. You could see in the turn that there was a rock just out of site of the camera where the shallow point had been hit. Classic low snowpack weakness point. Asides from a reminder that the avalanche dragon is still lurking, I have to say I felt very, very sorry for whoever went for this ride, as all there was below it was rocks and trees. It could not have felt good.
After scoping the scene to it's fullest extent and picking the safest line we could find down the adjacent slope, accompanied by some very spooky whoomphing, we skied out to the parking lot (after Hillary lost her ski for a good 5 minutes or so and had a crash course in skiing on one ski) and back up to the top of the pass.
It was awesome to go back to a place that had so ignited my love of backcountry skiing after having such a scary occurence in the backcountry the week before. It reminded me why I take the risk of leaving the resort and venturing out into the unknown, other than just having a bad memory and high tolerance for pain. It reminded me of the beauty of the natural world away further away from humanity and the camraderie that the folks who venture into the backcountry share. It also reminded me how good ramen can taste when you've really earned it.