Sheep Mountain - San Juans
Shelby and Andrew ski Sheep chute on Sheep mountain in the San Juans Colorado. Ski Mountaineering backcountry adventure.
Sheep Mountain doesn't sound scary - right? Sheep mountain's couloir was not very sheep-ish. It was a striking straight chute with moderate to steep skiing. We road tripped to southwest CO on Memorial Day weekend to explore the San Juans starting with Lizard head pass. This was a memorable 9 hour adventure for many reasons including the bushwack exit.
| Title | Content |
|---|---|
| Date | May 27 2023 |
| Activity | Skiing |
| Location | Sheep Mountain, San Juan Mountain Range, CO |
| Trailhead | Top of Lizards Head Pass |
| Distance | 8 miles round trip |
| Elevation Gain | Approximately 3300ft |
| Season | Spring |
The day prior
We didn't have an exact plan but knew we would head down and find camping either dispersed or campground. Right before the top of Lizard Head pass was a campground called Matterhorn campground run by the Forest service. There were bathrooms! (pit toilets - but better than nothing!) It had just opened for the season and was first come first serve. We easily found a nice spot - with a view of Sheep mountain (the couloir was not quite visible). We did drive up another forest service road to get a better look.
Later the camp host came to collect the nightly fee. She asked what we were up to in the area and when we said skiing and pointed to sheep mountain - I think she was a little surprised. Now it was time to eat dinner, rest, and create a plan for timing for the next day.
The Morning
The drive to the trailhead at the top of the pass was a quick 5 minutes. We started from the trailhead around 530 AM. We decided to approach through the trees up and across the ridge to the top of the line. Route finding through the trees was relatively straightforward and pretty easy once we were above treeline. Once above treeline the views of the Wilsons and the other San Juan peaks were gorgeous. Since this pass is pretty far in southwest Colorado we haven't spent too much time down there and so it was just nice to be there.
Once we reached the top we stayed as far away from the giant cornice protecting the North face as we could. From the scouting we did we saw there was small entrance that was not an overhanging cornice. This was challenging to find without walking out on the cornice but we finally found it and entered the north face.
It was windy on the ridge and even though we weren't quite sure the snow was soft enough to ski we thought we could at least enter and feel it out. This also allowed us to cross the cornice as early in the day as possible. After the tricky entrance we stopped at the top of the line to feel out the snow. As the couloir was north facing and pretty inset and shaded - it still felt pretty firm around 830am/9am. So we built little benches in the snow and tried to get comfortable while waiting for the snow to soften.
Finally it was time to ski! Shelby heading down first while Andrew flew the drone. See the video below for the footage!
The run felt long and consistently sustained. The top 2/3 snow skied great while the bottom third was less shaded and had been baking the sun for a bit too long. Also the bottom had quite a few exposed rocks. The skilled drone pilot (Andrew) navigated the drone back unharmed and Andrew skied down to Shelby.
Successfully at the bottom of the couloir we then had to figure out how to contour as much as possible back around to where we parked. This 'contouring' proved very difficult this late in the season. This turned into several hours of bushwhacking and constantly checking Caltopo for the easiest path (it did not exist). We were so exhausted by the time we got back to the car.
