Blue Lake Basin Spring Skiing (Indian Peaks Wilderness)

 

Nestled at over 10k feet, the Brainard Lake Recreation Area is a vast playground for spring mountaineering, alpine runs, and other outdoor pursuits.

Although it’s only a quick 45’ quiet mountain drive from Boulder, most Spring missions to the high peaks require long approaches of over 4 miles, often involving bikes and a multisport approach.

Armed with the latest lightweight performance ski touring gear, and eager, fit, and skilled partners with a winter of skimo racing in our legs, the crew (Zak, Tate, Davide) had a loose plan to make the most of one of the first early-season spring weekends conditions by banging out lots of the best lines in the Blue Lake basin.

ROUTE:
16 miles | 8k feet + | 6 hrs

Below is the Strava route from the day. It goes without saying: don’t just download this route and follow it blindly. Conditions in the mountains are always changing!

A note on safety: backcountry skiing is a dangerous pursuit. To attempt these lines you should have crampons, ice axes, avy gear, and know how to use them. A fall can be fatal, and rescue is difficult due to the remoteness and no phone signal.

CURVACEOUS COULOIR:
800m | 260m+ | 35%

We decided to work our way back from the furthest zone in the Blue Lake basin, and while the Paiute SE Face is a more fun line IMO, the punchy wind slab snow on the cliff bands didn’t seem safe. Hence, Curvaceous was a good warmup for the day. Snow conditions were marginal and a somewhat punchy descend, which made for a grim outlook for the rest of the day…

LITTLE BLUE COULOIR:
550m | 200m+ | 35%

I had eyed this less popular couloir on a run recon some years ago, and I was psyched that Tate and Zak were willing to give it a recon. The punchy crusty snow gave way to more consolidated snow as we climbed the couloir and headed into the super cool rock walls. We were psyched to find finally spring-ish snow on the descend in some seriously cool settings.

CROOKED COULOIR:
1200m | 550m+ | 40%

After a solid ski, we were itching for more, and as we worked our way back, Crooked was a logical choice. Due to super filled in snow conditions, we may have actually booted up a line more West than Crooked proper, but then as we reached the top, skiers left seemed like a better ski and it eventually merged into Crooked proper. This is probably the longer more sustained couloir descend in the basin, and it’s always a super fun ski with lots of features and variations. As a bonus, the lower part was proper corn skiing!

AUTOBOHN COULOIR:
600m | 300m+ | 35%

Although none of us had packed enough water & food for an 8 hour and 8k feet outing, we were all eager to make the most of our first day of spring skiing, wanting to hit one last couloir off the 3 Audobon couloirs on our way out. Luckily cloud coverage kept the snow from deteriorating, but wet slides and cornices were definitely on our mind. Hence, we decided to ski the more mellow of the three (looker’s right).

THE END

Bonked, sunburnt, tired, but buzzing on the successful quadfecta, no Boulder spring ski outing is complete without celebratory nachos & beers at Mountain Sun!

VIDEO EDIT

Enjoy a little edit from the day by Tate below!