THIS IS NOT MY PICTURE!!!

This is the upper portion of the Y Couloir of Mount Ypsilon (you can see people walking on to the right of the couloir for scale) - Mummy Range - Rocky Mountain National Park. The Y Couloir is extraordinarily long for a Colorado couloir - at least, it had that feel for me. The first time I tried to ski it was October of 05, I approached from the top, and topped in with a rope, rope skiing (ice screws and knots through my atc for solo system) the pure ice until it ended. I skied it for real in the spring of 06, again topping down. I had to rap into it - to pass a humongous cornice (25' tall) which was peeling off precariously. The upper portion of the couloir was 50+dg ripper corn. Then I came to the first rap step (15' steep rock) I used a sling around a medium boulder for pro... The skiing below was still superb corn, but I had to negotiate several gigantic runnels (ten feet across - ten feet deep) then ripper skiing down to the second rappel. I found some old bolts which I used for protection, as I rappelled 30 overhanging feet in a small waterfall, to the lower snowfield, which I skied down to the lake. I had to shwack several miles on the deproach, but i eventually met up with the trail once I gained the main cannyon. Back on the road - I hitchhiked back up to my vehicle. I caught a ride with Shorty, an old,old time skier of the Estes Valley -- on any given day in the winter or spring, you may meet him skiing around with a respirator in the back-country of Hidden Valley or Trail Ridge. Shorty (in his eighties probably) was in fact driving up to ski snow patches that day when I caught a ride in his 70s bronco.