The mountain man had referred to everyone else in line as “Dude,” so it was a little disturbing to be called “Ma’am” when it was my turn to pick up powder boards at the back of the bus.
I can’t say that I blame him. The vast majority of Silverton’s clientele are guys in their 20s who enjoy a cold PBR after skiing and smell slightly of used gym socks, not a woman in her 40s who sips cabernet during après (although doesn’t exactly smell of roses after a day on the slopes).
Buried in snow to the bottom of its windows, the old school bus serves as the rental shop at Silverton Mountain. You get to it by going out the back door of the tent that is the “lodge,” past the outhouse and up a set of stairs chipped into the snow. “All thrills and no frills” isn’t just a slogan here.
If you know anything about Silverton, you know it’s not your typical resort — it’s not even really a resort. Silverton is a mountain, a mountain for advanced and expert skiers and boarders, with no clear-cut runs, one chairlift and an average of 400 inches of snow each season. Peaking out at 13,487 feet, it is the highest ski area in North America. It’s also the steepest — and by most measures, the scariest.
Silverton is proud of its bad-boy reputation. The logo features a guy wearing skis falling off a cliff, and its most popular bumper sticker asks, “Got B***s (rhymes with falls)?”
While I don’t fit that particular anatomical requirement, I like to think of myself as having a healthy set of ovaries. But Silverton is humbling by any measure. From the information on the website that reads like a warning label to hiking narrow ridges with your skis on your back, this mountain demands respect.
I noticed the group always got quiet at the top of the slice of Silverton we had chosen for our run. I suspect part of that silence was pure awe at the beauty surrounding us: jagged, untouched peaks of the San Juans as far as we could see. But mostly the quiet was sheer terror as we looked down and realized we were going to ski into that untamed terrain for the 2,000 or so vertical feet back down to the road.
There was the one guy who must have known I’m the mother of young children, because he announced he wasn’t going to make it to the bottom without having an accident in his pants (using a word that rhymes with hoop). At which point I respectfully asked to go before him.
A guide’s job is to search out the best snow for the group. He or she is apparently also there to break your fall. On the last run of the day our guide “guarded” the edge of the cliff in a particularly dicey section of a cliffy run called “Waterfall.”
I pointed out that he wouldn’t actually stop me from going over the edge if I took a wrong turn, to which he replied, “I’d rather go down with you than watch you fall.” He can call me ma’am anytime.
I’ve skied similarly challenging terrain at Front Range resorts (or as the dudes call them, “Frange Resorts”), such as the Stone Creek Chutes at Beaver Creek. But at Silverton the cliffs are a little closer, the massive fields of snow more likely to slide and the runs much, much longer.
Sound good? If so, there’s still a month to get up there. On this, the first day of spring, it’s shaping up to be one of those heartbreaking years when ski mountains will close with more snow than they’ve had all year.
Summer will be long. Go get yourself some snow while you still can — Dude.
Freelance travel writer and Fort Collins resident Chryss Cada is an adjunct professor of journalism at Colorado State University. She can be found on the Web at and .
