Skiing the Grand Couloir on Monarch Pass
Shelby and Andrew ski the Grand Couloir on Mt. Aetna in the Sawatch Range of Colorado.
Mount Aetna is one of the more striking mountains that you see when driving over
Monarch pass, and its impossible to not want to ski the Grand Couloir right down
the face of it. In May 2021, Andrew and Shelby head down to the Sawatch to ski
the line.
| Title | Content |
|---|---|
| Date | May 15 2021 |
| Activity | Skiing |
| Location | Mt. Aetna, Sawatch Range, CO |
| Trailhead | Boss Lake |
| Distance | 7.5 miles round trip |
| Elevation Gain | Approximately 4000ft |
| Season | Spring |
We stayed at the Monarch Mountain lodge the night before, right across the road from the Boss Lake trailhead. It was rare to have such easy access to the trailhead for spring skiing so we took advantage of it.
The next morning we woke up around 3:30am to leave by 4am. We started from the bottom based on the most recent report that you couldn't drive too far up the road, and we had driven the Subaru down from Golden. The road was pretty rough but we probably could have made it a decent way up the road.
We hiked for about a mile and a half before attempting to skin. Per our usual decision-making, we quickly had to return the skis to the backpack and continue hiking shortly after. We worked our way to the base of the couloir and left the road on a hiking trail.
The bottom of the couloir was partly melted out so we skinned up as high as we could, then hiked across a scree field to the opposite side to continue skinning. We gambled on not bringing boot crampons this day - We almost always bring them in the spring, but not being a steep line we thought we would put our skinning to the test and limit ourselves to ski crampons. The couloir was a little icy in the morning, but we were able to switchback our way up into the basin.
The upper couloir looked steeper than we could manage with the ski crampons, so we cut over to the ridge and climbed up that way. This kept the angle a little mellower and we were able to do less switchbacking. The snow began to soften and got a little easier to progress, but after about 3000ft of climbing we were getting tired.
Near the top we put the skis back on the packs and booted up the last 500 feet. The snow was soft enough to feel comfortable, and we cruised to the top of the couloir. After a quick break and a visit to the actual summit, we ripped skins and started our descent.
The top was still pretty frozen and a little variable, so the first few turns were slow and deliberate, but after about 100 feet we had fantastic corn to the bottom. We both felt comfortable opening it up a little bit and doing some great skiing. After a few thousand feet of skiing, we reached the bottom of the couloir with smiles.
The exit was the classic combo of skiing, hiking and piecing together snow patches we have come to expect in the spring.