Mt Ouray – Backside of the Armchair

April 14, 2024

4,300ft of vert 7hrs 11min

The standard northwest lines off of Mt Ouray are pretty intimidating. Steep lines with a lot of routefinding plus high mileage makes it a pretty daunting ski tour. But our buddy, Kyle noticed a much easier line off of the south side of the right armrest, and had been talking about getting out to it for months. We finally had a day to get it so we set off at a very leisurely 10:45 in the morning cutting off of Marshall Pass road into the forest just past Beaver Creek. It was a little bit bushwacky to start but soon opened up into some well-spaced aspens as we ascended the right armrest.

All was well until we started to see the top of the ridge and we realized we might have messed up. It was a lot rockier than we had thought going into it. I tried getting as far as I could across the rocks and bushes without taking my skis off but we soon accepted we had a little more hiking to do, so off come the skis!

Eventually we hit the snowfield and could continue skinning up. Leslie and I have this running joke that if I say a tour should be 4 hours, that means 8. At this point we had exhausted our pocket snack supply but thankfully the main ascent was just up ahead.

The snow wasn’t fantastic. It was firm while still being tourable without our ski crampons, maxing out at somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees for a short bit. Despite the snow, I think this line was one of our highlights of the season, Ouray rewarded our efforts with about 2,500ft of solid downhill, on top of fantastic weather.

Exiting out of Tent Creek was a bit of a pain, with some bushwacking, mandatory ‘air’ and two creek crossings, I would be hesitant to try Tent Creek as an ascent route, despite what would be a shorter day. Eventually we hit the road again and skated to the closure. The ski gods blessed me with a ground score of a sealed Cliff Bar which provided a much needed source of calories towards the end of this long day.

We were soon back at Kyle’s Jeep, sipping on some cold-ish beers. All in all I would say this was a 9/10 day tour, though we probably need to figure out a better ascent.