Greg Kempers

May 18, 2024

3,000ft of vert 5.5hrs

I’ve had my eye on this town line for a few years, it stares down at you from the patio of Soulcraft Brewery and begs to be skied. I’ve asked around and done my research and I only found a couple of townies that have done it. All of them said they would never do it again.

I thought they were being dramatic.

It was a classic Greg and Chaz ski day: I bartend the night before, get no sleep and just do it anyway while Chaz waits on me through the whole climb.

We hopped on the Rainbow Trail just before 7am and head west from the CR49/FS101 trailhead, starting in running shoes. We head through the trees at some point and start slogging through to what will eventually be the northwest ridge of Simmons. This was definitely the worst part of the day, so if anybody else goes this route, just know it gets better! We start traversing on skins through the trees on the north side towards our line. We weren’t planning on summiting, although it wouldn’t be a problem with the route we chose, but eventually we found a flat transition point under some of the summit rocks and ripped skins.

Chaz then experienced every ski tourers fear: he dropped his skis. They didn’t go down more than 150 feet, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but he did miss out on the fun part of the run. I enjoyed that 150 feet and found his skis resting against a tree.

The snow past the trees wasn’t great from what I remember, Simmons definitely saw a recent avalanche from a storm the week or so prior. It got really crusty and had some downed trees poking through, but we persevered and enjoyed what we could. We were rewarded with a lengthy bushwack along a creek and eventually hit the Rainbow Trail.

All said and done, I would do it again. Maybe on a warmer day to get a little corn, I’d definitely look for a less suffering ascent. But we checked Simmons off of the to-do list!