Telluride: Nothing's quiet on this western front!
The western part of Telluride is full of moguls, back country trails and steep-chuted powder slopes which will induce beads of sweat on even the most extreme skier's brow. Experts should start the day out with the Oak Street lift (no.8) in Telluride and transfer over to Plunge (no.9). If you like, you can spend an entire morning on the northern slopes with Bushwacker, Mammoth and Spiral Stairs without getting bored. Here you'll find innumerable steep slopes, sprinkled with moguls, that will without a doubt get a complaint or two out of your quad muscles. Anybody who's not out of breath after that can take on the shorter, but in no way less challenging black diamond runs off the neighboring Apex lift (no.6). But even after that adventure you won't have conquered the most difficult trails at Telluride. Those are located between the narrow rocky passages off of Gold Hill Express and the dominating 13,320 foot peak (4060m) in the direction of Palmyra Peak. The chutes in this extremely steep and rocky area called Gold Hill Chutes 1-10. At one point we were forced to take out the ropes when we reached an rocky impasse along our path. If you want to discover all the aspects of Telluride, you're going to need two things – strong quads and an even stronger set of nerves.