Ski Bumming Day 1: Ski Cooper's Chicago Ridge Snowcat Tours
Jan 12, 2009 · 09:59 AM · permalink
Yesterday we dragged ourselves out of bed to make the 90 minutes drive from Dillon to Ski Cooper for our inaugural day of ski bumming: a snowcat tour at Ski Cooper’s Chicago Ridge.
Ski Cooper is a county-owned ski area known best as a local’s hill. The base area is modest and low key—it reminds me a lot of my hometown’s area, Dodge Ridge—but the hometown feel is a good cover for the awesome Chicago Ridge snowcat operation.
Chicago Ridge Snowcat Tours operates two snowcats over 2460 acres of terrain on the San Isabel and White River National Forests. The highest elevaton is 12,600 feet with vertical drop of up to 1400 feet.
Our cat departed at 9am, our last run ended at about 3:30pm, and we took 11 runs during the day totaling about 10,000 feet of vertical. Conditions were epic—no tours had been run for several days prior and our guides Ralph, Timothy, John, and driver Greg, took us to one area after another of untracked, bottomless powder. The run “Sawmill” in particular—a long, consistent pitch through an old logging area—left us most of our group positively aglow.
No question, this was the best days of my (and Shana’s) year, and if our guides are to be believed, this was the best day of the year for Chicago Ridge. And since we had a half-full cat, we had about five or six more guides tagging along. You can tell these folks love their job. Although safety is their number one priority, fun is a close second. It’s a pleasure to ski with folks who care about what they do and enjoy showing their guests a good time.
In addition to the awesome conditions, we ate a great lunch in the area’s yurt, and an off-duty guide loaned me his brand-new, 2009-2010 Head Jimis—a reverse camber powder ski with a 105cm waist that absolutely made my day. As best I can tell, the Jimi is an updated of Head’s current Supermojo 105. A review and pictures are in the works.
I highly recommend you find the money for a tour with Ski Cooper’s Chicago Ridge Snowcat tours. This year is less busy than prior years, which means more untracked powder per tour. But also, this was my second time riding with them and both experiences have made their respective seasons. I’m going to try to make it a more regular event. Tours are $290, but go up to $325 from January 25 to February 28. Don’t forget to tip your guides.
Comments
My friend Chad guides there - but he was teaching an avalanche course on Sunday in Leadville. Sweet looking skis and turns.
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