Aspen Ski Resort

Skiers and snowboarders showed up to Aspen Highlands in force Tuesday after a massive snowstorm created some of the best conditions of the season.  The parking structure at Aspen Highlands filled up quickly causing city officials to direct motorists back to Aspen to take the free bus.

Photos of the 12,392-foot Highland Bowl circulated in social media showing an impressive procession of skiers and snowboarders snaking up it with wisecracks about town being empty because all of the locals were seemingly hiking and skiing the bowl. Other locals shared photos of an avalanche that slid sometime Monday night in nearby Maroon Bowl, which is out of bounds.

Aspen Highlands was originally scheduled to shut down for the season this Sunday but the Aspen Skiing Co. has decided to reopen the mountain the following weekend, April 27 and April 28, in appreciation of their customers and the bountiful April snow.

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This month will grab honors as one of Aspen’s most frigid Januarys in at least 20 years if the mercury plunges below zero again in the next 10 days.  This month has chilled skiers, frozen pipes, tortured cars and chattered teeth with lows at or below zero on 10 days so far, according to records tracked at the Aspen Water Plant.
This cold snap featured two periods with consecutive subzero days — Jan. 3 through 5 and Jan. 12 through 16. Subzero weather isn’t unusual for Aspen in January, but it doesn’t usually strike for this many days. Records from the observers at the water plant show that since 1994 only two years came close to matching this icebox performance. There were 11 days with temperatures at or below zero in January 2008, including five in a row. There were nine days with the super-low temperatures in 2007, according to the water plant’s records.  Last year there were only four days of subzero temperatures in January. In 2005, there was none.
The first half of the winter will be remembered as much for being dry as it was for being cold. The snowpack in the upper Roaring Fork River basin fell below 40 percent of average Monday, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The snowpack is measured at an automated Snotel site near Grizzly Reservoir, roughly 15 miles east-southeast of Aspen. It should typically have 8.7 inches of water in the amount of snow at this time of year. The snow-water equivalent was only 3.4 inches Monday, making it 39 percent of average, according to the Snotel site.  The total amount of precipitation — snow and rain — at the site is only 53 percent of average since Oct. 1.

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The man who was instrumental in expanding one of the renowned backcountry ski-hut systems surrounding Aspen was honored Thursday with completion of a new hut that bears his nickname.

Opa’s new hut is stunning. It’s tucked into a granite-lined niche at 12,000 feet. While standing on the expansive deck facing due south, it only takes a subtle turn to see it from Grizzly Peak east of Aspen to Taylor Peak, which looms to the hut’s west. Jagged peaks are planted everywhere between.

The hut is about 6.5 miles southeast of Ashcroft and about 1.5 miles southeast of the summit of Taylor Pass. It’s roughly half way between the Friends Hut and the Goodwin-Green Hut.

“When I look at the system, I think of this as the center of the web,” said Hawk Greenway, longtime manager of the Alfred A. Braun Hut System. Opa’s Taylor Hut is located within 4.5 to six miles of five other huts in the system, so it will be integrated into multiday trips, he said.

Like all huts in the Braun system, Opa’s won’t be for the casual backcountry traveler. Nearly all the routes to Braun huts cross big avalanche paths. The huts also can be difficult to find. There are no trail signs.

Opa’s hut is burrowed into a granite outcropping. It’s invisible from the northwest until travelers are upon it. The most direct route during the summer, via Express Creek Road and another forest route from the summit of Taylor Pass, most definitely isn’t a route backcountry skiers will want to take because of avalanche danger, said Greenway and David Swersky, a member of the hut system’s board of directors.

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