Cat Skiing in Colorado

Great piece on Ski Press about my favorite ski area in the West, Monarch:

Cat-Skiing with Scot Schmidt, Part of My Ski Dream Come True

Monarch, Colorado-“Shall we meet at the Playboy Mansion?,” “Do you want to play catch with John Elway?,” and, “How would you like to go cat-skiing with Scot Schmidt?” are three questions I’ve always longed to hear.

Now, there are only two.

When Greg Ralph, marketing director at Monarch Mountain asked if I really did want to cat-ski with one of my all-time favorite ski heroes (Klammer, Coombs, Bode and the Hermannator are the other four ), I didn’t even need to know the date before I said, “I’m there.”

Everything else in the world could wait while I got to make a little bit more of the lifelong ski dream come true.

Monarch is one of my favorite places to ski, a no bullshit ski hill in southern Colorado with steeps, glades, bowls, wide open cruisers and consistently good snow. Friendly river rats waiting for the Arkansas to run in the valley tend the chair, telemark skiing refugees from the I-70 corridor ride single with you, and when the snow is falling, the happy skiers from Texas and Kansas go to watch sports at the base, whistling and cheering for every play as if they were in their hometown bar.

And the cat-skiing glimpsed in the hike-to bowl of Mirkwood, and beyond on the white-cupped chutes and faces of No Name Peak, is simply incredible.

Likely to be included at some distant date in a Forest Service approved Master Plan that’s hardly even half built, Monarch Snowcat Tours is the only way to access some of the area’s steepest chutes and bowls. With a summit that tops out at 11,961 feet, the big mountain skiing available here is absolutely 4 REAL.

It’s the kind of place you’d expect Scot Schmidt to ski. And after a few runs it seems perfectly natural watching him glide between the black rocks, snake through slim gullies, and arc across open, unblemished faces with that calm confident style that made him famous in movies like Ski Time, The Blizzard of AAHHH’s, Siberia and Sex, Lies and Ductape. It was really cool.

To ski those runs behind him was even cooler.

But to see how much time Scot put into signing autographs – he’s got a Sharpie in the pocket of his trademark The North Face jacket – skiing with kids and just being the all-around nice mellow guy that you always think he is anyway was the coolest thing of all.

Just like the skiing, Scot Schmidt’s for real. And the whole experience made nothing but great memories for this guy. Thanks Greg. Thanks Scot. Thanks Monarch.

Ready when you are Mister Elway. Mister Hefner.