Backcountry Skiing Hawaii Couloirs on Pacific Peak, Breckenridge, Colorao

May 5

I was looking to check out the Mohawk Lakes Basin during the spring, when it would be much less busy and have terrain we would be able to ski. So, Mike and I decided to check out the Hawaii Couloirs off of Pacific Peak.

We parked at the Spruce Creek Trailhead around 7am on Sunday morning and set out down the road towards the Mohawk Lakes Basin. We made pretty good time to Lower Mohawk Lake and started heading up towards the upper lakes in the drainage. When we finally got to the the point in the Hawaii Couloirs where it got too steep to skin, we took off our skis and strapped them to our packs, put on boot crampons, and got our ice axes out.

Similar to the day before on Mount Guyot, we found a wind crust on the surface of the snow. This made the boot pack much more exhausting as we had to break through this layer of snow. I’m glad Mike was breaking trail! We had to boot pack the last ~500 ft of vert. At the top of the ridge, we were met by some pretty strong winds so our snack break was very short, and we quickly transitioned to ski down.

Mike skied down first and had to go quite slow because he found a several inch thick wind crust, much thicker than what we had found the day before on Guyot. He was finally able to open up his turns halfway down. Once he was down, I started heading down and was having a lot more trouble breaking through the crust (likely because I weigh 60 lbs less than Mike) so I made the first handful of turns in his tracks and then was able to open up the run halfway down as well.

When I made it to the bottom where Mike was waiting for me, we decided another lap wasn’t worth it with how difficult the skiing conditions were. A hot lunch in town sounded much better so we headed back down the way we came up.

Overall, it was a great day and a great weekend with us checking off two local lines we’ve been wanting to ski. Spring is really the best time of year for skiing!

Total stats: 9 miles, 2800 vert.