Freeride heaven in Silverton

It is finally snowing outside my window in Silverton, Colorado. And time has come for me to break camp and continue on my roadtrip. Next stop Telluride, where I hope to catch a few turn later today if I make it there on the snowy roads.

Silverton is a magic place, at least from a skiers perspective. It is an old mining town (and people are still out searching for gold around here) surrounded by steep and high mountains.  I was lucky to meet two new friends on the hostel here to keep me company for a few days, and I put together a short movie of our time in the mountains (it needs some polishing still but it is snowing outside so this is what you get...). It had not snowed here in over a month so we were really lucky to still find good snow, although we had to hike for every meter of it.


Yesterday I spend on the Silverton ski hill, which have great terrain, but was very skied out, they also offered a heli ride for 50$ and although I knew the snow was not going to be good I finally caved in to the temptation and took to the air, and I sure got a good view of the surrounding mountains, and lots of crusty hard snow.

Silverton Hostel, great place to stay and a lot warmer then my car

Silverton is an old mining town, it shows in this iron colored creek

John enjoying the View at 12500 feet

Bad ass Nick posing in the sun

Looks like a somewhat rocky descent ahead of us

One of many river crossings

Muma mountain lion had walked ahead of us in the ski track

Silverton Ski area with its peak on 13500 feet (4200m), seen from the helicopter.

If you want snow you have to sacrifice some hair to the gods, and it worked!

It has now snowed 10-20 cm in Silverton, Time get moving and finally ski some fresh Colorado pow!