After staying the night in Durango with a friend, Mark and I headed north hoping to ski one of the many incredible lines the San Juans has to offer. We got in touch with a friend who lives in Silverton and set our sights on the “Turkey chute”: a locally popular ski line up Arrastra gulch just outside of the town.
We woke up early and made our way to the trailhead, finding the storm that we expected to move in later in the day already well on its way. By the time we got to the trailhead there were already four new inches of snow on the ground and it was actively snowing. We decided that “Turkey Chute” was not in our risk tolerance given the developing storm and decided to turn around and head out in the powder tour area on Molas pass.
Its always hard to turn around from an objective, but as the storm continued to drop snow and make for low visibility conditions, we decided we had made the right decision.
Even better than spending the day in terrain we were comfortable in, was the unexpectedly incredible powder conditions! We ended up skiing a over 6,000 feet of vert as we explored the area we had passed through a year prior on our traverse of the Colorado Trail. The storm which had rolled in and out all day, was rebuilding as we headed back to our car making for a trying skin through the wind that reminded us of our time here last spring.
Back at the car we were met with enthusiasm from local skiers who had spent the day in the same fashion we had: enjoying the late season powder. It wasn’t the day we had planned, and while we dealt with some trail and tribulation in the moment we looked back at the day as an incredible tour and a really fun day in the snow!