Jack the Ripper Couloir, London Mountain, Alma, Colorado
London Mountain - Jack the Ripper Couloir is in the center of the photo
It was projected to be a warm, sunny day so Mike and I were looking for a line that would provide some corn skiing that also wouldn’t require an alpine start. We found a line in one of Fritz Sperry’s guidebooks called “Jack the Ripper” on London Mountain in Alma that had a fun looking ski with a very short approach.
We parked our car on Mosquito Pass Road at the point before the road became covered in snow. It seemed like walking along the road for a while was the best choice before we cut left and went across the creek. Once we cut off the road, we put our skis on and found a snow bridge to use to cross the creek. **Please look at a map before determining where to cross the creek as there is private property in this area, and I strongly discourage trespassing!** We then contoured along the base of the mountain in the woods to the bottom of the line we were looking to ski. We skinned up a lower gully that we would eventually ski down and soon found ourselves at the bottom of the large bowl below Jack the Ripper and another line called The Wave. We skinned up this bowl for a little longer and ultimately switched to bootpacking. We headed straight up Jack the Ripper. The snow in the couloir had heated up very quickly and was softer than the snow in the apron. My assumption is that it a) got hit by the sun a little earlier than the apron and b) the rocks really attracted the sun’s heat and create a bit of an oven on this line. This gave us incentive to move quickly.
Once at the top of the line, we transitioned to ski mode and headed down one at a time. Perfect corn was found! This was some of the best corn skiing I’ve had so far this spring. We headed down the exact same way we came up and found ourselves back at the car before lunch.
Stats: 3.8 miles, 1900 ft of elevation gain
