Backcountry Skiing the Swan Dive on Mount Guyot, Breckenridge, Colorado
Krista looking back at Mount Guyot at the end of the day
This past weekend, Mike and I headed out to ski a local line we’ve been wanting to ski called the Swan Dive on Mount Guyot. The first mile of the day was along a road that had already melted out so we got to do some ski boot walking to start the day off. Once we turned off the road, we were able to put our skis on and start skinning up the gulch. It was a beautiful morning, but we could tell it was going to be rather windy above tree line. We followed an established skin track up to the northwest ridge of Mount Guyot. Once we got to the ridge, there were spots that were either totally wind scoured with many rocks showing or were complete sheets of ice formed by the wind. It required some route finding to stay on what I’ll call “skin-able” snow.
Once we got to 12,500 ft, we put on our ski crampons as the snow was exceptionally firm from all of the wind it had seen. Had we not brought our ski crampons, we probably would have been putting in a boot pack. Several hundred feet from the top, there was no snow left on the mountain so we put our skis on our packs and climbed up the talus slope in our ski boots. At this point the wind had really picked up and forced us to keep moving in order to stay warm.
Finally, we made it to the top of the mountain and were able to transition. The first few turns off the top towards the Swan Dive line were the ones we were the most concerned about. The snow was exceptionally shiny (looking like it might have been ice) and had cliffs below these turns so it was a no-fall zone. I dropped in first and was delighted when it turned out to be a wind crust that I was able to break through and grip the snow.
We took turns skiing down one at a time. The snow had a wind crust the whole way down that made it difficult to ski in parts, and while we never found a slab, it made us a bit more cautious. The line ended up being a ton of fun with 2000 vertical feet of steep turns.
Once we got to the bottom, we noticed that the way we had planned to come back over the ridge to get to the gulch that would take us back to our car had a saddle that had a fairly sizable cornice. This, combined with obvious wet slides on the slopes around it the day before led us to take a longer, but safer route back to the top of the ridge. We ended up staying in some trees until we got close to the ridge. Once we got to the top of the ridge, we had another line to ski down to the bottom of the gully. This line was a little more wind-protected and didn’t have a wind crust, making it the best snow of the day. Once we got back down into the gully, we took the skin track back out to the road and walked the last mile back to the car. Overall, it was a great day with some fun skiing.
Total stats: 8.7 miles, 3800 vert.
