Crestone Needle, Blanca Peak, Little Bear Peak, Mount Shavano and Longs Peak. All stand above 14,000 feet. All stand to be skied yet by Aspen mountaineer Chris Davenport.
Davenport, who embarked last January on a mission to become the first person to ski all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks within a calendar year, whittled his hit list down to five last week after a big southern storm that buried the Sangre de Cristo Mountains enabled him to ski the elusive Humboldt Peak (14,064 feet) on Dec. 23. A day before, he summited and skied Mount Princeton (14,197) in the nearby Sawatch Range. Although Davenport had hoped to ski all the 14ers before Jan. 1, he has given himself until Jan. 21, the one-year anniversary of the first one he skied.
“Mother Nature was tough on me last season, leaving me with nine peaks left to go this fall and winter. But then she came through in a big way (last) week with a fat storm that covered all the right zones,” Davenport blogged on his website, www.skithe14ers.com. “That gives me three weeks to do five peaks.”
RESORTS: Wolf Creek gets 40 inches from storm
With a full 40 inches of new snow dousing the slopes, Wolf Creek Ski Area topped all Colorado resorts with last week’s snowfall that left the Front Range at a virtual standstill. Season snowfall to date at Wolf Creek stands at 186 inches, with a mid-mountain snow depth of 71 inches.
Elsewhere across the state, Winter Park received 2 feet of snow from the big storm. Purgatory logged 33 inches, Telluride 31, Aspen Highlands 18 and Keystone and Steamboat 15 each.
WORLD CUP SKIING: U.S. skiers have breakthroughs
Last week’s unprecedented string of nine World Cup alpine podiums by five U.S. skiers in six days includes several other items of note:
The best previous streak was a top-three on four straight days by U.S. men or women in 1983.
First World Cup wins for Steve Nyman (Provo, Utah) and Olympic giant slalom gold medalist Julia Mancuso (Olympic Valley, Calif.), each of whom won in downhill.
Lindsey Kildow (Vail) earned her fourth and fifth podiums of the season, winning the second Val d’Isere, France, downhill Wednesday after finishing third Tuesday in the first Val d’Isere downhill, as she moved past childhood idol Picabo Street with 18 World Cup podiums.
It’s the first time two U.S. women have stood on the podium together since Kildow and Mancuso went 2-3 in super G at Cortina, Italy, on Jan. 27, 2006.
Bode Miller’s victory Wednesday in super G in Hinterstoder, Austria, was the 24th of his career, moving him closer to Phil Mahre and his U.S. mark of 27 World Cup wins.
After being stymied in Val Gardena since AJ Kitt’s third-place finish in 1992, U.S. men broke through for two wins in 24 hours.
As of Dec. 21, the U.S. men have three skiers ranked in the World Cup top 10 overall – Miller second, Ted Ligety sixth and Nyman 10th. The U.S. women have two – Kildow fourth and Mancuso seventh.
FREESKIING: Squaw Valley on tap
With the addition of its fifth event – the Squaw Valley USA Freeskiing Open on Feb. 14-17 – the $100,000 Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Series continues to grow. Winter 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of the Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Nationals at Snowbird, Utah, and a return for the second year to Telluride (Feb. 8-11) and Jackson Hole.
Registration for all confirmed U.S. Freeskiing Series events sold out in only four days. Squaw Valley event registration opens at www.usfreeskiing.com on Wednesday at 5 p.m. MST.
(COMPILED BY STAFF WRITER SCOTT WILLOUGHBY)
