Buffalo Peak via Silver Couloir

Buffalo Peak's Silver Couloir - A classic line on an iconic peak

Ever since moving to Summit County earlier this winter (Feb 2010) and finally landing a position of gainful employment, I could now begin to set my sights on various peaks without the extra anxiety that had been weighing me down for the past couple months. When I signed the lease on my 1-person, loft apartment, high up on the hill overlooking the towns of Silverthorne and Dillon, I was most excited to have a ranked 12,777 foot mountain as my backyard. Buffalo Mountain is clearly visible to all who drive westbound, just a few miles past the Eisenhower Tunnel. Its quite an introduction to the rugged Gore Range and Buffalo does an amazing job of making itself known to all who gaze to the North. In the summer, its nothing more than a quick 4-5 mile jaunt up a nice trail to the rounded summit. In the winter and spring, the rugged North Face reveals some unbelievably aesthetic ski lines, most notably the Silver Couloir. Known well to local backcountry ski enthusiasts in the area, but not really to anyone else, the Silver is the epitome of classic and I'm very proud to admit its right out my back door.

I met a new friend on this trip. Matt, a CPA for Excel Energy in Denver and a native of Detroit, MI, had posted a thread on 14ers.com, looking for partners for this route. I immediately shot him a quick email, expressing my interest. At one point, we had a decent group of 4, but plans changed and the weather seemed to be deteriorating as the week progressed, but Matt and I maintained our faith and good thing we did, because come sunday, we couldn't of asked for better conditions.

We met at the trailhead around 5:30am and were on the trail minutes later, skinning up the trail to the 3-way junction, about a half mile in. The short downclimb and traverse to the North approach of the mountain went quickly, and within an hour, we were staring the Silver directly in the face.

After a quick deuce drop with ski boots on and some de-layering, we put the skis on the pack and began to boot it up the chute with perfect bookpacking snow. The vertical on the Silver is approximately 2500-2700 feet, with an average angle of 35-40 degrees and a max angle of maybe 42-43 near the top. It gradually flattens out and then its a quick traverse to the summit. The bootpacking was made easier since it was 2 of us and we evenly split up the breaking trail duties so neither of us got too worn out.




The Silver really is a dramatic area, as shown in the following shots :







It took a little over 2 full hours to climb the couloir and then another 5-10 minutes to top out on the summit with an amazing 360 degree view of Summit County, as well as parts of Eagle County. There are so many great lines in this region, maybe not as good as the San Juans, but enough to be able to be glad to call this place home, specially now that all the gapers, tourists and methhead lifties from Keystone are gone for the year.

Anyways, some shots from the summit :