It's been a stormy October here in the San Juans with heaping amounts of lightning, thunder, drenching rains, and a bit of snow up in the high peaks. The southern San Juans in particular got hammered by Tropical Storm Priscilla, causing major flooding in Pagosa Springs!

In early October, autumn around southwest Colorado neared peak color. My backpack was packed for an overnighter in one of my favorite aspen getaways, which would be immediately followed by a week long road trip of further aspen wanderings.

Then random disaster struck in the most mundane of circumstances. Short story short, I took a spectacular digger over my patio coffee table and broke my big toe!!! So my autumn hiking season came screeching to a halt right when it was about to really get rolling, and in the absolute dumbest possible way. 😭

So this last week or so I've been stuck limping around the house, laying on my couch, looking off into the distance at the golden mountainsides of color, watching everyone online posting their fantastic photos and raving about what a wonderful autumn it's been. I feel so stupid for slamming my toe and so regretful for squandering this short precious season in this short precious life. Such is the curse of the injured outdoor lover.

If anything, this is a reminder to always be grateful for your health when you have it! Because you sure miss it when it's gone.

Anyhow, here are a few of my "warmup" photos from some hikes before I sidelined myself.

Last night's sunset was a wild one over Ridgway and the Sneffels Range! Stunning mammatus cloud formations rolled through the sky in advance of a booming thunderstorm. Even my wideangle 16mm lens couldn't quite fit these crazy clouds into the frame!

I'm a bit late on this post, but here are a few pics from a mini-vacation to Telluride in mid-August. My friend Bryan was visiting from the Front Range and invited us to join his family and friends to stay for a weekend at a condo in Mountain Village. Though it's only a short drive for us from Ridgway, it was a treat to spend a few days relaxing as tourists in Telluride, and to catch up with old friends!

With a big May snowstorm barrelling towards Colorado and unused ski tickets to A-Basin and Loveland, earlier this week I drove up to the Front Range for one last hurrah on the snowboard this season. I enjoyed a fun powder day at Arapahoe Basin, then met up with a few of my old Boulder buddies to carve up the groomers at Loveland Ski Area and A-Basin again. What a great way to wrap up the season in May!

During the last week of March, Claudia and I returned to my hometown of San Diego for the first time since 14 years ago! We visited some of my family and old friends, wandered around a few of my favorite places, drove through the neighborhood where I grew up, and of course ate a lot of delicious fish tacos.

Although it's been nearly 30 years since I lived in San Diego, there's something about it that is still rooted in my soul. The sound of the waves, smell of the ocean, coastal breeze, soft light, hazy clouds, Spanish missionary architecture, and countless other little details still feel like home to me.

One thing I kind of forgot about is just how beautiful the city is - specifically, the lush landscaping with all the exotic trees, plants, and cacti that were planted since the early 1900s. Some entire neighborhoods look like botanical gardens! We also visited the wonderful San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas, where trees and plants from all over the world are displayed. In San Diego's mild Mediterranean climate, as long as there's water just about anything can be grown there!

It felt great to be back, even if I'm just another tourist now.

Despite an understated "moderate" danger rating by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC), the snowpack in the San Juan Mountains (and presumably throughout Colorado) is incredibly dangerous right now. Tender avalanche conditions are normal around here, but this season's snowpack is about as bad as it gets. There's a ~2 foot thick slab of recent snow from last week's big storm resting atop completely uncohesive faceted old snow. Basically the base of the snowpack is ball-bearings just waiting for a trigger to slide.

On Tuesday my friend Jason and I went for a backcountry tour and randomly met and became fast friends with Michael, a skier visiting from Liechtenstein! Michael joined us for two laps in a relatively safe zone, though we knew to avoid the wind-loaded convex rollovers that have buried people in the past. Another group up there that day wasn't quite aware of that and triggered a sizeable slide on exactly such a terrain feature. Fortunately nobody was caught though I'm sure that got their pulses racing!

Then on Wednesday the three of us headed out again, this time to explore a new route up a favorite peak. As we put in a skin track up a [safe] forested ridge, the snowpack was whoomphing, collapsing, and cracking around us. Very spooky. It's impossible to ignore such alarm bells from the snowpack, so it was a clear decision to abandon our initial plans and opt for a safer line of descent off the mountain.

That same day, a backcountry skier near Telluride triggered a large avalanche that swept him down through 1,000 feet of rocky, cliffy terrain. Miraculously he was uninjured and only partially buried.

Then on Thursday, tragedy inevitably struck when a skier was buried and killed by an avalanche near Ophir Pass.

All the while, the CAIC's avy report danger rating remains "moderate". I know that the CAIC doesn't want to cry wolf too often with overly alarmist avy ratings, but this season I can't help but question the value of distilling a very complex and variable snowpack into a one word danger level, especially when that rating significantly understates the lurking dangers. The CAIC's longer snowpack discussions in the daily avy reports always seem to be spot on and highly informative; but these days I pretty much just assume that the danger rating is higher than stated. In my mind, the dangers of the weak, faceted base of this snowpack will remain at least "considerable" probably until spring. Perhaps the avy danger ratings in times like this would be better summarized in a short sentence, or at least a few works, like "Deadly Moderate".

CAIC does fantastic work and I think they produce some of the best avy reports in the world. I would just encourage any backcountry skiers to always read their in-depth snowpack discussions instead of relying on a glance at the rating scales.

I hope that if even one backcountry skier/snowboarder is reading this, that I can be just a little nagging voice reminding you to always head the warnings of the snowpack, be flexible with your route and terrain choices, and err on the side of caution this season. That is all.

After a pretty snowy November, we've been in a mostly dry spell this December here in southwest Colorado. But, with cold temps and the low-angle December sun, there's still preserved powder out there up high and/or in shady areas. It's just a matter of finding it!

Yesterday morning Claudia and I woke bright and early for a day of skiing/snowboarding at Powderhorn Mountain above Grand Junction. The drive from Ridgway took us up over the top of Grand Mesa, where the aspens were beautifully frosted by a recent snowstorm and frigid temps. Despite my rabid eagerness to get on the slopes asap, I just had to pull over at one point and snap some pics of the frosted aspens backlit in the early morning sun. Glorious!

It's been nearly a week of sun since the last big snowstorm, so I didn't have high hopes for the snow quality today on my second splitboard outing of the season so far. But Vijay and I ended up finding smooth, firm powder to open up some high speed carves! Way better line than I expected today! Gotta love that. 🤙