2006 was another snowy fall up in Montezuma. I made several trips up into the basin for some fall skiing and before long, after enough snow fell, the North Couloir on Castle Peak was ready to go. As the guide/owner of Alpenglow Expeditions, Adrian invited Christy and I on an expedition to climb Ama Dablam in October 2008 so I figured to invite him on this microexpedition here today was the least I could do.

The ATV makes quick work of the road, and after helping dislodge a stuck Subaru Outback belonging to a couple from Boulder who read online reports of good skiing up here, and in the process completely tearing off its front end, we were at the top of the road and putting our skins on our skis. We felt kind of bad to leave them there, no doubt to argue the entire way home over whose stupid idea it was to travel all that way in the first place, but there wasn't much more we could do.

We cruised up to the Castle/Conundrum saddle and then on to Castles' summit. The six foot plus Adrian has long strides and great overall fitness so I was working hard to keep up on this 1st ski mountaineering day of the season.

We skied the North Couloir, hardly hitting a rock though hindered by flat light from time to time, and shortly after concluding the ski the clouds went away— so we went for Conundrum Peak too.

Once again the big strides hurt as Adrian plowed up the East Couloir, eventually turning, if only out of fairness, to say "your turn"— rats. Up on top I shot some pics, including the banner panorama for these 14er reports and we headed down.

The sun was shining and the ski was awesome. For all the times I've been up near here, I had never skied the Conundrum Couloir, I was psyched. So much so I thought the day warranted a followup visit with Christy, later in the week.