Start/Finish: Silverton

Start Time: 0545

Duration: 12 hr

Point to Point Distance: 23 mi

Elevation Gain: 13,294 ft

Weather: -6 to 30F, bluebird

Partners: Scott Simmons and Chris Baldwin

I wanted to ski in Silverton since the first time I drove through in the middle of summer over a decade ago. Fast forward to now and I find myself living in Durango with a ski partner who has been exploring the area for 30 years. He mentioned he'd be skiing in Silverton with an Eagle friend and invited me to join. I cleared my schedule and let him know I'd come up to which he briefly explained it would be a big day and we'd start skiing about 0530. I failed to fully comprehend just what a "big day" entailed.

I left Durango at 0415 nearly plowing into an elk just a moment after turning onto 550. Coffee rendered redundant. Upon arriving in Silverton at 0515, Scott and Chris were already up and dressed. They briefed me on the plan of summiting and skiing the Silverton Big 5 - Sultan, Anvil, Hancock, Macomber and Kendall. Looking at about15000ft. I checked to make sure I had my big boy pants on but wasn't sure they were big enough.

Sultan

We started in -6 deg darkness climbing toward Sultan on an old skin track that terminated near treeline where we picked up the ridge. As we ascended Scott casually asks if we're comfortable with a little 5.4 section. Spice is nice. A small notch in the ridge required a short climb not made any easier in ski boots. We summited at 0830 to a sublime day and continued on along the ridge to the first line of the day. I had no idea what to expect as Scott asked, "Brent, you comfortable with this?" I then peeked over the edge of "the elevator shaft". It had a corniced entry into a steep, narrow couloir that dove down around 50 deg into the abyss. Comfort's relative right? I threw on my puffy and helmet and we each took turns side stepping down the cornice into the frigid couloir. Scott went down the thin, tight gut first sloughing loose snow and encountered a down climb in the choke. Chris and I waited above until he made it through and took cover below as each of us created sloughs of our own before carefully descending the rocky step. There we found supportable recycled powder. We party skied a couple thousand feet to the valley floor.

Anvil

We crossed the street after mending some skin issues and started up the sunny south side of objective 2 of 5 - Anvil. Before long we were bootpacking and I came to learn that I must've been the heaviest because I repeatedly post-holed in the steps kicked by Chris and Scott ahead of me. The effort took a toll. I fell a ways behind and summited a few minutes after them at just before noon. From the summit we could see Chris's food packed stash car far below at the bottom of a skied out chute. We took mogul turns to the bottom and refueled in the sun for a few minutes.

Hancock

A realization sunk in that we were a little behind schedule and the moment we started moving again my legs already felt heavy. I considered bailing right then but mercifully the ascent into Hancock Gulch below Storm Peak was along an established low angle skin track in the trees. It's just a beautiful, revitalizing setting. Nonetheless I started feeling sapped again along the final ridge summiting nearly 9 hours into the day. We discussed descent options. Originally the plan was to descend down into Boulder Gulch right off the summit. CAIC's avy forecast was low but the face looked like it had a lot of wind loading. We traversed down ridge to the north, navigated the cornice above the face and skied down to a pinner below Storm. It ended up holding the best snow of the day.

Macomber

It was a roundabout way of skiing off Hancock and I had no idea where we were going from there as we descended down delightful snow into Boulder Gulch. Suddenly Scott pulls up and announces skins back on. Oof, I thought. I was feeling the bonk train coming. We skinned about 3/4 of the way up Macomber before starting to bootpack on scree. I fell way behind. Altitude had never affected me before but it seemed to this day. I finally topped out at 1645 way behind Scott and Chris. We skied down and out of Boulder Gulch through some less than delightful willows and melt-freeze crust as the sun began to set. I knew they were still on a mission to complete the 5 so there we parted ways.

Chris and Scott went on to summit and ski Kendall in the dark finishing around 2130 after 15.5 hours, 16,880 ft of climbing and 32 miles. The day kicked my ass but I can't think of a better way of being introduced to the skiing around Silverton. Grateful and humbled to have joined them.