Backcountry Skiing Homestake Peak, Leadville, Colorado
This past weekend Mike and I were looking to do a bigger backcountry ski tour one of the days. After considering avalanche conditions for the Sawatch Range on the CAIC website, and with a persistent slab avalanche problem still being prevalent in the region, we decided to keep our terrain selection more mellow and found ourselves looking to do Homestake Peak. In the past we’ve had concerns about it being wind scoured, but with it having been a calm week and one where we got some snow, we figured it would be as good of a time as any to check it out.
With the weather for the day projected to be warm and sunny, we decided to get an early start so that we would be able to ski good spring snow before it got too sticky. We left the trailhead around 7am and began our 5.1 mile, 3000 ft vertical ascent to the top of Homestake.
The first mile was actually more downhill than uphill, which we knew wouldn’t be fun on the way out, but it allowed us to do a very fast first mile, which is always nice when you’re trying to beat the snow from getting too warm and sticky. We followed the trail marked by blue diamonds for the 10th Mountain Division Hut for the first few miles and turned off when we were pretty close to the hut. There were then quite a few skin tracks to choose from and without knowing where any of them went, we decided to forge our own path until we got to the ridge of Homestake. At that point the way to make it to the top became very clear - go straight up!. We stopped for a snack break in a sheltered spot before we got to the ridge in case it was windy (which it was).
Me in front of Homestake Peak. We went up along the ridge on the left side of the photo.
We made it to the top without incident; although there were quite a few rocks to avoid in some wind scoured spots. At the top we took a moment to take in the 360 degree views that Homestake provides. My favorite view was to look down the Sawatch Range towards Mount Massive and Mount Elbert. It brought back memories of hiking Mount Massive last summer. To the west, we were even able to see the mountains around Aspen, with Pyramid Peak being the most prominent in my opinion. Before we got too cold, we decided to start our descent.
At the top
The ridge took some route finding in spots to avoid sharks (rocks), but we got lucky and ended up hitting the snow perfectly - it was just starting to soften and provided some great spring skiing. After enjoying the ridge run, we hit another short shot through some trees and then knew we would have to straight line it back to the skin track we took up that morning and hope the wax on our skis would keep us moving. I had waxed our skis the night before, and I sure was glad I had done that! We made it back most of the way and decided to change back into skins for the last mile. We made it back to the car a little after noon and decided some Chinese food was calling our name on our way home.
Overall, it was an awesome day with perfect weather, a great workout, and some great snow. I have a feeling we will go back to Homestake. Hopefully next time the snowpack is a little more stable, and we can ski some of the steeper bowls off the top.
Our first view of Homestake Peak
Can you spot the friend we made?
How about now?
Name that ski area
Art
Uphill both ways
