Its been three years of planning and learning to put this trip together and pull it off! When I broke my back in 2011 the only way I was able to keep my head on straight was by study every inch of the Gore Range! I don't know why but something about how it is the last frontier of Colorado, not traveled/visited by many, tough access, amazing rock scrambles, availability of first ski descents are just a few reasons why I fell in love with it. I now have three summers of exploring this mountain range, three more years of back country skiing experience and thought it was time to test myself in the Gore. I AM NO EXPERT ON EITHER OF THOUGHTS TOPICS, but i felt confident enough that I could go in there, have some fun, learn, and truly feel how small and fragile you are compared to these mountains.
After a few days of planning I was able to get Nick and Noah to come along for the adventure. We met up at the Deluge Creek Drainage around 7:30. As we where packing up a nice older lady from the Vail search and rescue group made sure we new what we were doing, "I do not want to have my search and rescue dogs come find you!" We got on the trail around 8:00, it took us about five hours to get to the lake, 4.5 miles, 3,000 vert hike/skin. Now most people would say "WOW they are very slow, we could easily take an hour off there time." WELCOME TO THE GORE, NO TRAILS TO FALLOW, BUSH WHACKING, POST HOLING, 40 POUND PACKS, TAKING SKIS ON AND OFF, and O I free got to say that you gain 2,500 vert in 1.5 miles, this makes for some awesome type 2 fun! By the time we got to Deluge Lake we were dead and looking forward to getting into are shelter. This is where it turned into type 3 fun, our shelter had 3 broken windows and had blown full of snow. We shoveled it out and tried to get it dry.
After a few days of planning I was able to get Nick and Noah to come along for the adventure. We met up at the Deluge Creek Drainage around 7:30. As we where packing up a nice older lady from the Vail search and rescue group made sure we new what we were doing, "I do not want to have my search and rescue dogs come find you!" We got on the trail around 8:00, it took us about five hours to get to the lake, 4.5 miles, 3,000 vert hike/skin. Now most people would say "WOW they are very slow, we could easily take an hour off there time." WELCOME TO THE GORE, NO TRAILS TO FALLOW, BUSH WHACKING, POST HOLING, 40 POUND PACKS, TAKING SKIS ON AND OFF, and O I free got to say that you gain 2,500 vert in 1.5 miles, this makes for some awesome type 2 fun! By the time we got to Deluge Lake we were dead and looking forward to getting into are shelter. This is where it turned into type 3 fun, our shelter had 3 broken windows and had blown full of snow. We shoveled it out and tried to get it dry.
After resting for a little we decided that it was still early in the day and the snow was still good. We headed off for the west slope of Snow Peak, we were eyeing up a shaded north facing couloir. When we finally pulled the skins off and started to ski it felt amazing. Skiing some nice soft snow made the five hour slug in and hike up snow so worth it!
As the sun started to set we knew we were going to be in for a long night but we where still stoked to be there. We had pasta, white sauce, imitation crab meat, Asian salad kit, and Twizzlers for dinner. We started to worry about are pro-pain and water situation. The lake was a few hundred yards away from the shelter, we thought we might be able to break threw the ice and filter out some water to save are pro-pain. When we got to the lake we only had to dig a few feet down to find melted water under the snow but on top of the ice. This was great for us because we got plenty of water fast but scary to think that this meant there was a good bit of water running under the snow pack. We got back and bundled up for the night, 45 minutes later we were wide awake, we had stolen a pika's house. I don't want to sound like a girl but its hard to sleep when you hear, see, and feel little things crawling around you in the dark! Some how we all got a little shut eye in between the wind and pika's scurrying around us, we where up at 6 am ready to climb Grand Traverse peak. Since it was SE facing it had had gotten a full melt freeze cycle from the last few days. We shouldered are skied, put on crampons, and grabbed are axes. There's no way better to warm up and enjoy the morning by kicking steps straight up 1,200 feet of 30-50 degree snow. We topped out in about an hour and half, took some pictures and waited for it to corn up. We skied a fun steep head wall into a little couloir that spit us out onto the SE face where we could rip some big turn down to the lake.
After the ski we came back to the cabin, had a second breakfast, cleaned the place up and got ready to head out on are 4.5 mile ski / bush whack. We ended up skiing the deluge creek drainage all the away out to the gore creek drainage. As we did that we had some awesome skiing on some south facing aspects, perfect corn. You have to be careful if you come out this way because it is very easy to get CLIFFED OUT. We skied/ bush whack another mile or two out of gore creek and found are self's back at the trail head around 11:45, what an awesome trip!