Mount Democrat - Emma Chutes

Short approach to some steep-ish chutes on the south side of the 14er Mount Democrat.

Some days the early wake up wipes you out. For me (Andrew), this was one of those days - I was having a rough morning so Shelby took the lead. We had given Cristo Couloir a shot the day before, but turned around before the summit due to rapid warming on the south facing slopes.

Shelby drove us to the Kite Lake trailhead for about a 4:45am start up Mount Democrat, a 14er in the Mosquito range near Fairplay, Colorado. Shelby expertly navigated some rocky sections with our soft electric-vehicle tires, successfully avoiding puncture and we parked at at 12,000 ft high trailhead. It was late enough in the season that there were more hikers than skiers, so we shared the parking lot with quite a few others while getting into our ski boots and putting the skins on our skis.

We were able to skin from the parking lot, which feels rare for June. I was still struggling so Shelby took the lead for most of the morning. The surface of the snow was frozen but like we saw the day before, not the deepest freeze. After a few hundred feet of climbing we had to transition to crampons to climb a small headwall. From there we kept the crampons on through the climb up the 'chutes'

The snow was still pretty firm and the sun was rising. A lot of the snow was sheltered from the sun by Mt. Bross and the south side of Mt. Democrat, the chutes being slightly SW. We continued climbing towards the summit.

At the summit, we met a few other folks and transitioned. The snow was ready and so were we. Time to ski!

The top was slightly firm still, but skiing down a few hundred feet it transitioned to great corn. The chutes were a great pitch - steep but not terrifying. We both enjoyed some great turns down the slopes.

We had to take our skis off below the chutes to get back to the small headwall we had climbed up. Unfortunately below this point the snow had softened to the 'unpleasant' level; the skiing below this point was pretty miserable. We made it down as quick as we safely could, and were back at the trailhead in no time.

We didn't take a ton of photos through this lower part for additional details check out the video below!