You do bring up some good points Kieth. I suppose you could huck and it would count 😉 In general, I consider 1000 feet of skiing from the summit, uninterrupted, to be my standard on most 14ers. There are some obvious cases where this just doesn’t work. Some of the obvious ones are Sunlight (have to start a few feet below the spire), Capitol (no one has yet to ski this peak uninterrupted), Wetterhorn (have to downclimb from the summit), and Crestone Needle (some years the Needle requires a downclimb in the middle, but either way, if you traverse out to Broken Hand you generally can’t ski 1000 feet uninterrupted). Another example is Bross which has a very broad summit that basically no one has been able to ski from since the snow just blows right off of it. Everyone I know has had to walk a ways to reach snow, but still only losing about 20 feet of vert, if even that much. For all other 14ers a ski of 1000 uninterrupted feet is possible, and so that is generally my standard 🙂 There have been a few cases where I’ve “compromised” this a touch in order to ski a better line. Generally, what has happened here, is I’ve walked without losing vertical- meaning I either traversed over rocky sections, or climbed back up a bit to enter a different line.

Generally, there aren’t really any set standards to skiing 14ers. I think it comes down to each individual and what they are comfortable with claiming as a true descent. I didn’t feel like my descent of Mt. Wilson was 100% legit because it’s been done in better style by several others. Getting it in better summit conditions is not a fluke, it’s entirely possible. And that’s what I need to do in order to be comfortable “claiming” the descent.

Here’s another summit descent scenario. To be honest, I’m being somewhat silly here to make a point, but it kinda figures in to seemingly hazy set of rules. Let’s say there is snow from top of the peak for 15’…like your day on Mt. Wilson. Then, it’s melted out, or cliffed out (what have you) for the next 40’…but below that the snow continues indefinitely. Here’s the silly part: you’re a total badass, and you aired it over the no-snow part, and continued skiing. I realize there might not be a peak like that in CO that wouldn’t spell H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L with the pitches involved off a typical summit…but it could happen. Because you are staying in you skis, does this now count?

If staying in your skis off the true summit and walking across rock counts, then the “14’er huck” would be sound. But if that’s the case, you could also downclimb melted out portions…in your skis. Is being in your skis the important part, or actually weighting your skis on the ground (snow or rock) more important? What length of uninterrupted snow off the true summit counts before you are allowed to downclimb unskiable portions? I guess if you had 100′ off the summit, then an interrupted portion, then back to snow…is that more acceptable than 15′ off the summit?

I’d give this descent to ya, but your adherence to high standards like others have said is laudable by all means.

Cheers, and great work!

I suppose since I started skiing the 14ers in 98 that I grandfather myself to the Dawson standards, even after the bar has been raised by Dav and others. 🙂 I do think it’s important that the standards be adhered to otherwise you run the risk of the downward spiraling standards (climbed to summit in August, skied 400 foot patch of snow).

It’s been great to see the 14er ski goal progress throughout the years, and see you and Frank, and Dav and the others raise the bar is inspirational, any way you shake it getting on those peaks and skiing down them is fun.

Irlts you bring up some good points. I suppose summit descents are somewhat a matter of opinion, really. Lou Dawson set the initial standards for 14er skiing. But, I think Chris Davenport set today’s standards for 14er skiing with modern equipment. By modern equipment, I don’t just mean with today’s better backcountry gear. I am also referring to the advent of the Internet and all the resources that are readily available- trip reports, SNOTEL, weather, updated trailhead info… all things Dawson never had but Davenport did have. It is my personal goal to strive to adhere to the standards set by Davenport. I might not always do his route, but if he skied something directly from the summit, I feel that I need to do so also. Such is the case with Mt. Wilson. I felt like skiing 15 feet and then taking my skis off for the next bit would have been cheating that standard, so I will just have to go back some other time to really call it a true summit ski 🙂

Question of the summit ski as that’s one of my favorite subjects.

Why not just ski the 15′ of snow and then downclimbing through the missing snow, wasn’t that top 15′ feet from the summit. Seems similar to like what you need to do on Uncompahgre, although that dowclimb is more like 400 feet below the summit, but it’s probably more like 200 vertical feet of snow it still doesn’t usually get skied. And it sounds like others are claiming skis of Wilson with some downclimbing, are you just saying that you’re not OK with this, or do you think that current standards mean that you’re descent wouldn’t have been up to snuff.

I always believed that a downclimb in the middle of the descent was OK so long as it was reasonable (and that downclimb seemed reasonable), so long as you linked turns off the summit. Seems like much ado about nothing if you just made some turns off the summit, although if you’re not OK with it that’s probably the 2nd point of Frank’s ramblings.

Either way 52 completed is amazing and your reports have been nothing short of inspirational.