This is a backcountry winter expedition in the Collegiate Peaks with opportunities to ski and ride the out-of-area slopes and learn winter expedition skills. The terrain is challenging and we can only accept students with solid intermediate skiing or boarding skills.

Course Area
The Sawatch Range, including the well-known Collegiate Peaks, contains the three highest peaks in Colorado: Mt. Elbert, Mt. Massive and Mt. Harvard. Many of its more prominent peaks were named for the alma maters of early explorers and surveyors. Professor J.D. Whitney, who led one of the first and most famous survey parties through Central Colorado, named Mt. Harvard after the school that funded his expedition. Another massif became Mt. Princeton, named for the Princeton University Scientific Exploration survey teams. Although these groups named the peaks, undoubtedly Native Americans and miners searching for gold and silver had summitted them earlier.

Course Description
Ride out-of-area slopes rarely skied or boarded by anyone other than Outward Bound instructors and students. The first few days of your course are based at our Leadville Mountain Center to help you ease into the winter environment.  The first full day will be spent riding and skiing at Copper Mountain Resort, where your instructors will assess your abilities and help you improve techniques. In these first few days, you will also learn how to safely travel in the winter backcountry. Along with snowboard-and-snowshoe instruction or skiing instruction, you will receive training in avalanche awareness & hazard evaluation. You will also learn winter navigation, cold weather physiology & first aid, winter camping, equipment selection & care, and expedition planning. Advanced boarding and skiing instruction focuses on backcountry turns in variable ungroomed snow conditions. The high point of the course is a challenging backcountry expedition, camping out and traveling in pristine alpine terrain. You will snowshoe or skin up peaks, ride untracked snow, build a snow shelter, enjoy a short solo, and learn to assess and adapt to varying snow and weather conditions.