Earning Turns in Aspen

Aspen Local and ski alpinist Ted Mahon is taking his game to the next level...on the mountain, behind the lens and with the keyboard.  He and fellow "peak-bagger" Chris Davenport (fresh off summiting Mt. Everest ) recently did a quick up and down on North Maroon Peak, one of Aspen's famed Maroon Bells.  Ted shares his experience here on AspenSpin.  

You can see more of his work at  STUCK in the ROCKIES.

The North Face of North Maroon   by  Ted Mahon.  Elev. 14,014

Good call, Dav.

Sometimes you just have to play the hand you’re dealt.

Not that skiing isn’t one of my favorite things to do, but after six or seven months of winter, the arrival of summer is definitely welcome. As we all know though, nature doesn’t always follow a set schedule and this year’s prolonged snowy spring was a good example of that– summer really didn’t seem to declare itself until just a few days ago. In fact there’s still so much snow, even Aspen Mountain is set to be open this weekend.

So rather than fight the trend, we’re still skiing. Earlier in the week, after some flakes fell in town on Memorial Day, Chris Davenport– just back from a successful expedition to climb Mount Everest that included a rare ski descent of the Lhotse Face– made the call to head up to North Maroon Peak, where we found conditions to be more like March than June.

Until things dry out around here, the ski season will likely play out a bit longer. And if all the days are like this one, we should have no problem making the best of it.

Stacked with snow, including a few inches from the night before, Chris approaches the big North Face of the "relatively" small mountain. Just ten days earlier Dav was atop Mount Everest, and it was great to catch up and hear all the stories from his expedition.

After catching up to a solo skier from Colorado Springs (seen below), we took the lead booting up the North Face. Despite being in front of Dav here, his acclimatization from the Himalaya was no doubt still working to his advantage. We managed to make the round trip climb and ski in five and a half hours.

Status Verfified: One of the 50 Classics. Stuck in the Rockies.