Arizona touring pics

I thought I would share some pics of the ski touring here in Flagstaff. Our conditions are often comparable to east coast skiing but with a lot more sun shine, warmer temps, and some pretty descent terrain for ski touring off the chairlift. Our snowpack right now is extremely thin but some pitches and lines are starting to fill in. It get's much better than these pictures show during heavy snow years.


Snow Slide Springs

Ken on Snow Slide

Some Core Ridge Lines

Joystick Spire, a volcanic hoo doo. We have many lines that drop through these Dr. Seuss like formations

Skinning back into the Cirque after a very long tour

Views of Dunnam Canyon below Humphrey's Peak along our skin track

Ken skinning through the Aspens

Fremont Peak from the toe end of Soft Core Ridge right before we dropped into the Foot Fetish shots

Looks awesome! Thanks for the sweet pics.

Wow. Look at some of those lines. Are you getting many powder days? How long is the season there?

That looks great, how much snow do you get over the season and how much is required to bring those gullies in? Are the mountains a far drive from where you live in (assuming) the metro area?

Hey thanks. I should have mentioned that these pics are from this Saturday and Monday so it is sort of a tr or at least a look at current conditions.

I have only had two powder days riding the chair and two days of touring and there still is pow to be found in our bc. We have a little somethin somethin moving in tomorrow that could produce 6 inches or so, so maybe a little re-boot. Our season with snowmaking is Thanksgiving weekend to April 12th-ish. Some years it dumps and some it barely snows at all. The terrain tho is beautiful. I'll keep updating this thread throughout the season. Hopefully I will have some pics to share of this place shining bright. Right now we are skiing very conservatively.

The steep shots in the pic of Core Ridge I'm a little scared to get on right now. We have a lot of whoomphing on the north facing and other sheltered colder aspects/areas. If you go for a ride in a lot of our more technical terrain it's likely going to be your last ride.

Nice pics. Flag is such a nice town. If they got 100" more snow per year, I'd definitely live there.

I was there last December. Real cool town, great weather and primo mexican food..

mattchuck2 wrote

If they got 100" more snow per year, I'd definitely live there.

A lot of people say that. I look forward to checking out ASB some day.

Raising AZ, is Sunrise still open?

I've driven past Humphreys / AZ Ski Bowl a number of times en route to GCNP and points north, always thought it'd be a cool place to ski.  Isn't there a nordic touring center up around the northwest side as you drive around?  That looked pretty cool too. The whole northern AZ - Four Corners area is just a really beautiful part of the country with tons of amazing outdoor recreation options.

Rode Snowbowl during a weekend stay on a business trip back in 2010, must have been a good year - snowed 18" night I got into Flagstaff - wasn't expecting much from Snowbowl, as I didn't do much background research before deciding to go, thought it was tiny.  First chair up, fog broke skies cleared, and then I said holy sh*t! 12,000 ft. peak....the place was def not small. Great day of riding.

I honestly didn't know AZ had that kind of terrain, place looks sweet.

Gawd I need to get out moar

RA, do you ski those Core Ridge lines pictured ?

I remember, I think 2 or 3 years ago when we had minimum natural snow here in NY, I kept seeing reports of huge dumps in New Mexico and Arizona!

Thanks RA those pics are really nice. I say go BIGGER!

Sunrise is still open, I have only been there to take my daughter skiing when she was four and just learning.

Ya, we ski everything doable in the bc here. I'll keep posting up terrain shots as the season progresses. That sexy coulior viewers left of the Core Ridge lines photo is called Two Straps named after an incident when one of my friends Fritsche fr binding broke before dropping in and he had to use two straps from his back pack to secure the heel piece in order to ski down it.

Harv, I went with small just to be safe after I was told my pics were too large. Next round I'll try the big option.

From where I live I can be on the chair in about 15 minutes.

Flag is a great town and the mexican food is so good.

That's cool when stuff gets named after you.

EDIT: Image size limit is 1MB.  750 px size should be fine for that.

Yesterday we din't get much new but it was snowing and blowing enough that the mountain skied really well. I spent the day doing hot laps on the Agassiz chair for about 6 hours straight.

The clouds were super cool.

More pics coming?

Am I reading that right? 5.69 FEET!

Inches of liquid.

Still a lot.