I awoke on my buddy’s couch in Breck to my phone ringing. It was 7:05, and I was supposed to meet a crew at 7:00 at Clint’s coffee shop on Main. Without thinking twice, I grabbed my bag and boots, and walked out the door. One cup of coffee and a short drive later, and I changed into my Cross gear for the tour.
The tour went quickly with my brain still half functioning from the night before. We lost Andrew early on because of food sickness, but Collin, Tyler, and I persisted through the high winds. We found ourselves on the summit in about three hours.
We transitioned from uphill to downhill mode and all three of us strapped on GoPros. Due to condensation, I ended up without any usable footage, but Tyler got some good shots of the descent.
This was my third time on the summit of Quandary Peak, and it was going to be the second time for me to try and ski the Christo Couloir. The first time I tried back in February of 2008, I performed a ski cut at the top, which let loose a slide that was big enough to turn around our relatively inexperienced crew. It also led to some scree scrambling in alpine boots after getting cliffed out, but it made for a nice story. Luckily, this time, the snowpack stayed still and we enjoyed some windbuff at the top, some corn in the middle, and mush on the ski out.
A traverse out in the drainage between Quandary and Northstar mountains, and we found ourselves back at the car before noon. A quick stop at Lucha capped off the day, until I got home and discovered I was going to see Zion I & The Grouch for free (which definitely capped off what were probably the three most epic days of my twenties so far).
Time for some bigger missions!
