Silverton?

[burton71]

Anyone ride there before? Just starting to look for places to go next season...probably late Feb / early March. Was thinking about 2-3 days at Silverton followed by 4-5 days or so at Telluride or somewhere else close by.

 

That time of year Silverton is guided skiing only...is that worth it or would it be more fun to go there at a different time of year for some unguided riding. They also seem to have some pretty reasonably priced heli packages. Anyone done those?

[jordan]

unless you are in absolutely amazing shape, you will be dead after 3 days at silverton. I've never been guided, but I can tell you that unless you are with someone who knows their way around...guided is the way to go. you can get yourself into some serious shit at silverton if you don't know where you are going. Other than that, its an amazing experience, and is fun as hell. You won't find another ski area like it anywhere in the world.

 

Never done the heli...but it sure looks like fun I think its like $150 a run. You need to do at least 2 runs in order to be able to ski some of the better stuff that you couldn't get back to the base from though.

 

Jordan

[Glenn]

unless you are in absolutely amazing shape, you will be dead after 3 days at silverton.

 

I've never been there but I have done a decent amount of high altitude hiking, and high altitude hiking with people from 0 elevation. If you haven't been doing serious training all winter (steep hiking with gear for hours on end) then you are not going to get your money's worth I think. Also if you get lumped with other groups they will be really pissed you can't keep up, because that is their money you have wasted. I don't know all the details, but it sounds like Heli might be a good option. You should be looking at that place and realizing 5 runs a day would probably be ambitious. If you are splitting your time, think about adding crested butte, or wolf creek in. Alternatively just spend more time at Telluride. I think 1 day is all you will want or need.

[jordan]

I've heard Silverton is alot of hiking and traversing.

yep...3-4 runs a day would be considered ambitious. Don't be surprised if you can only get 2. The lift is basically there to help you gain the initial vertical and to get you to easier hiking along a ridge line. Note easier...not easy. Hiking over icy rock in ski boots above huge cliffs can be a little bit unnerving. You can hike another 1000 vert from the top of the lift up to the billboard (a high point on the ridge, and the highest point in silverton proper, or you could go further depending on what they open for guided skiing). Its definitely a great experience, but be in shape!

[AtomicSkier]

wow...i had never really looked at Silverton before. good stuff. it's on the list.

[Timeless]

I've been hitting the Eliptical machine 30 minutes a day..by next season I'll be down...

 

Down to what..... ?

[toast21602]

Down to what..... ?

 

235

[jordan]

wow...i had never really looked at Silverton before. good stuff. it's on the list.

it won't be ritzy enough for you. The base lodge is a yurt, the beer is PBR, the bathroom is an outhouse, there is no running water, and there are no fancy hotels or restaurants in town.

[jordan]

no

[Kyle]

235

Damn, toasts been on a role the past couple of days

[Glenn]

[burton71]

I've never been there but I have done a decent amount of high altitude hiking, and high altitude hiking with people from 0 elevation. If you haven't been doing serious training all winter (steep hiking with gear for hours on end) then you are not going to get your money's worth I think. Also if you get lumped with other groups they will be really pissed you can't keep up, because that is their money you have wasted. I don't know all the details, but it sounds like Heli might be a good option. You should be looking at that place and realizing 5 runs a day would probably be ambitious. If you are splitting your time, think about adding crested butte, or wolf creek in. Alternatively just spend more time at Telluride. I think 1 day is all you will want or need.

The hiking won't be a problem. The group of guys I ride with are all in really good shape and we have all done our fair share of hiking. We are usually the guys in the front of the group waiting on other people.

 

Elevation might be an issue but I think if we do a day or two at Telluride first and then head over to Silverton we should be acclimated by then.

 

Helis are definitely on the list. We got grounded by weather in Whistler this season so I really wanna get it in next season.

 

Is Crested Butte close enough to Telluride to just do a day trip and then head back after riding?

[Justo8484]

 

backseat bandit

[AtomicSkier]

it won't be ritzy enough for you. The base lodge is a yurt, the beer is PBR, the bathroom is an outhouse, there is no running water, and there are no fancy hotels or restaurants in town.

 

I can manage that for a day.

[jordan]

Is Crested Butte close enough to Telluride to just do a day trip and then head back after riding?

you could..but I probably wouldn't... You can stay in gunnison for around $60/room/night (gunny is about 30 mins from CB). I would try to hit CB if you can though...would be one helluva trip. Telluride, Silverton, and CB are my 3 favorite ski areas in CO. They definitely collectively have BY FAR the best in bounds terrain in CO, if not anywhere in the US.

Edited April 21, 2011 by jordan

[jordan]

Does Telluride have better terrain than Aspen?

yes

[jordan]

But Telluride gets a small annual average snowfall right??

Telluride averages 309" which is about average for Colorado..Aspen/Snowmass/Ajax average 300", while buttermilk averages 200"

[AtomicSkier]

Telluride averages 309" which is about average for Colorado..Aspen/Snowmass/Ajax average 300", while buttermilk averages 200"

 

I didn't think Telluride even got that much...terrain there is great, but I haven't been back since they added their new stuff. My friends that were there recently said it's worth coming back.

[jordan]

I didn't think Telluride even got that much...terrain there is great, but I haven't been back since they added their new stuff. My friends that were there recently said it's worth coming back.

not this year they didn't...its a la-nina year, San Juans always do bad. last year they pushed 400 though.

 

while we are talking about snowfall...loveland broke 500" this week

[burton71]

Leaving on Sat. Riding Telluride Sun-Wednesday. Silverton Thur-Sat. Friday is the planned heli day. Not sure how much riding we'll get in on Thur because that is the travel day...might hit up Durango instead of Silverton for a 1/2 day session. Both Telly and Silverton are getting hammered with snow right now so it should be pretty damn nice when we get out there.

[toast21602]

there better be pictures and video from a heli day. thats all.

[burton71]

Definitely gonna have a ton of pics and vid from the entire trip. Probably not gonna post anything till I get back though.

[Johnny Law]

Sick, Silverton with snow is like nirvana for 50$, 100 if guided.

[burton71]

You need a lift ticket which is $139. You also need avi gear so if you don't have a shovel, beacon and probe you have to rent those for $35. Then there are multiple options for heli riding. You can pay $159 per drop with access to less remote terrain. Or they have 2 packages. $320 for two drops plus access to remote areas of the mountain you can add more drops for $159 each. Or $999 for 6+ runs pretty much where ever you want in the 22k acre area.

 

We aren't exactly sure what we want to do yet, but probably leaning towards the $320 package and adding a few more drops.

[burton71]

No pictures for this yet, my buddy has my external drive with all my pics and vids. I'll post some later.

 

Telluride:

 

First day was awesome, they had gotten a couple inches the night we got there so we got some great early morning alpine powder runs down. Revelation Bowl was fun as hell but got tracked out quickly. Did a couple short hikes and hit some of the Gold Hill Chutes. Not sure which ones we dropped but it was definitely some of the best in bounds terrain within a 5 min hike of lift I have ever ridden.

 

Second day it was crazy cold and windy over night so the alpine iced up solid for the morning. Ripped some groomers in the AM and then it got warm...very warm. It was about 52 by 11am. Decided to lap the park with the soft hero snow. Their large park had 4 increasing in size jumps from 25 - 50 feet. And then a show time 65 ft booter. Probably the best jump line I rode all season. Ducked into some lower mountain trees after the park and ripped some mushy, untracked till close.

 

Next two days the weather was great, about 34 or so and not a cloud in the sky. Explored the entire mountain hunting for some left over powder. A couple more Gold Chutes opened up so we hit those. One had a forced 8ft drop over rocks to get into, fun as hell but scary. Did about a 25 min hike into Palmyra for some sweet bowl turns on soft but tracked snow,

 

Telluride is really a tale of two towns. Mountain Village for the more ritzy, posh experience and downtown Telluride for the local vibe. Both were tons of fun with great food, drinks, and crowds. I'd definitely head out there again.

 

Silverton

 

Holy crap is it a small ass town. Winter is the off season so even though Red Bull was in town for the Cold Rush not that much was open. We rolled in around 11am our first day there. We decide to grab our boards and just drive out of town and find some BC to hike. 5 minutes out of town we found a really nice kicker, about 30-35feet with a pretty short hike. It was a bit bombed out but we hit it a couple of times and then headed out to find better snow. Another 10 mins down the road we found a great 10ft cliff drop with untracked, but slightly crusty powder. We took our chances and hit it up, good thing we did. Great time, got some cool video and had a blast. We packed up and headed for home after that.

 

Day 1 Silverton. Definitely like nothing I have ever done before. Upon arrival you need to check in, rent you gear, and have a quick safety chat. After that you get grouped up in groups of 8 and head out with your guide. Our group of 4 got put together with a group of 4 skiers because we were the only ones signed up for heli drops...other then a bunch of the Red Bull staff who had booked entire day heli trips which made our day very interesting.

 

We get off the lift and our guide informs us that our first run is going to be a heli run...which they don't normally do with quest they don't know because the want to evaluate your ability first. We grab our gear and hike over to the heli landing area. Heli comes flying in and lands like 3 feet away. Rotor wash is blowing snow every where. Its just awesome. We load in in groups of four and up we go. Total air time is about 3-4 minutes with some fun flying and diving. Then the pilot lands in, dumps us and we goes to get the rest of the group. Once the group is together we get some nasty, untracked turns down one of the steeper bowl runs I've ever done. Snow goes from fluffy powder, to heavy powder, to chunks and bumps by the bottom. Really had to stay on your toes. At the end of the run we had about a 15 minute hike to the service road where the bus picked us up and took us back to base.

 

2nd run, we had a 35 minute steep hike off the lift...which at altitude is hard as fuck...but got us a great look at the Cold Rush features. Nasty railroad rail, a few huge booters, and cool mine shaft drop. They had some avy issues the day before on that exposure so we had to drop before hiking all the way around. Still this was the longest run of the day, started with a fun chute drop out into a huge bowl and some fun trees.

 

We were supposed to get another heli drop but we keep missing our window to meet with the heli. Since Red Bull had 20 people on all day trips were only had small windows to get drops when the heli was coming or going for fuel. So we only ended up getting 1 drop the first day...which sucked but the comp'd us a free drop the next day which was really cool of them.

 

First day ended with 3 more lift / hike runs for a total of 5. I was worked after that.

 

Second day we once again started with a heli run and got some great turns. 2nd run we ended up in a tracked out woods run were we had to use a rope to get down probably a 50 degree 100ft icy chute that was surrounded by rocks. Scary and fun at the same time...probably wouldn't want to do it again lol.

 

3rd run was our next heli drop which took us out much further than the first. Best snow of the trip. Our group split into two, 4 went down one chute and the other 4 went down another that opened into the same bowl. At the bottom of the bowl we had a long hike, probably 30-40 minutes to get over a ridge to drop back in a start riding down to the access road.

 

We stopped for lunch and beer and then took two lift accessed short hike runs and then called it day.

 

Over all it was a hell of trip with tons of riding, open to close every day at Telly and as much as our legs could take at Silverton. If I had to do it again, I would flip the trip and start at Silverton and end at Telluride. But other that it was great and I would recommend both. But if you go to Silverton be ready to work.