Searchin for some Silver

Over this past weekend, the crew decided to venture on down to Silverton Mountain to use up the free ticket we had earned earlier in the year by bootpacking for them. Being poor college kids, who have an extremely expensive and addicting hobby (ski building), we camped out at the base of the mountain to save us some mulah.

Sunrise in Silverton

 We woke up the next morning to buses rolling past our tents carrying ski patrol back to the base after their first round of bombing. After stumbling out of the tents and scarfing down a quick breakfast we slammed our feet into our ice cold boots and headed to the lift

For those of you who have not heard of Silverton Mountain, it is located in southern Colorado, and consists of one lift. To get to the resort you drive through the old mining town of Silverton and then head up a dirt road for several miles until you stumble upon a single lift that seems to be located in the middle of nowhere. You then ride up the lift and then hike to the terrain you want to ski.

One of the ridge hikes at Silverton

 We reached the top of the lift and didn't really know where to head from there. We decided to follow everyone up one of the bootpacks set on a ridge.

Will Boyer lookin good

After hiking to the top of the closest peak we were able to spot a couple of fun spots to go slide down. It was definitely spring time and we knew we needed to get as much skiing in as we could during the morning. We ripped down a nice open bowl, skiing down some creamy mashed potatoes, and then headed back to the lift.

Chris Hinkley Dropping it on his Torpedo's

We took one more run right off the chair, only to find that the snow was even more wet, it was definitely some good old spring skiing. After struggling through the thick, slow, and sticky snow we reached the bottom, dripping in sweat. We were starting to lose hope of finding good snow, but then Eureka!!! We found the goods. After hiking to the same spot where we took our first run, we dropped in on the otherside of the peak to find about a foot of light dry powder.

Eureka! We found the pow!

After finding this spot, we lapped it for the rest of the day, Hinkley decided to channel his inner ski racer as he went for some air.

Chris Hinkley

We had an awesome day at Silverton, definitely one of the chillest places any of us have ever been/skied. If you ever have a chance to go there definitely take it.