Frisco descents

My morning started with a 5:15 wake up. I headed east from Breck up and through the tunnel, and to the Stanley staging area. I was fortunate enough to join Lee, one of the 3 CAIC/CDOT forecasters for the Region 1 area, to shoot the Stanley with a 105mm Howitzer.


Unfortunately, despite 20" new snow in the past few days, nothing moved but a small sluff. The winds were out light and out of the E, which is the opposite of what it needs to build a slab in the SE facing starting zone. Oh well, it was cool to watch the precision of the operation. Look at the size of those shells!

I headed back over and through the tunnel to where the skies were mostly clear. I had a few things in mind, too many actually. Then I decided, why do a long approach when I can ski some great looking lines from the town of Frisco?

Lapped this shot twice, then further up on Tenmile Peak, then over to Royal Mountain to finish it off.

Lines skied 3/27 and 3/28, all names I made up, not sure if locals call them anything else. Pretty sure Stupid is as Stupid Does was a first descent.
A: The C shot
B: Blondie's Folly
C: Stupid is as Stupid Does

Close up of the C shot

View down the C shot. Sick turns right on top of town.

Blondie's Folly
Named after Blondie the dog, because she should've been there. She is a longer haired dog, and I didn't want her to ball up in the moist snow and roll down the steep chute like the cartoons.



Stupid is as Stupid Does

This is a route that I dreamed of since seeing snow on Royal Mountain in Frisco. I was stoked to actually be following through. It required one rappel to get down some big pillows up in the trees, though this might be manageable if you came in from skiers right more. It felt like a big, exposed north face. Then I looked down on the city of Frisco. I had awesome snow in couloirs connected by narrow chokes that I had to negotiate before a handful of turns on the hanging snowfield. I tucked in behind my first anchor, a nice veluptuous pine, and rapped down. The coolest part was going down a 65 degree ice rib. It felt like the Eiger. A full 60m later I pulled the rope, then packed up and made a handful of turns on a rib. All the snow that I thought I could ride on sluffed out to not nice gneiss slab. I then decided to climb back up and made another rap off a tree. At this point, the dogs in town were barking at me, and I didn't look, but I could sense a local sitting on a bench watching me. "Stupid is as stupid does" he thought...
I was briskly deposited on the flat sidewalk after popping some pillow lines in the runout. An older gent walked by and said, "where did you come from?"
"Up there" I said, and pointed.