Simmons Chute

Hey all, welcome to my first trip report. After a couple of phone calls and some babysitting swapping, we had a crew of three including myself, Ryan, and Mark; (two splitters and one on AT setup). The very asthetic line of Simmons Chute in the Sangre de Cristo range can be seen from many places in Chaffee County. It calls out, begging you to ride it, not to mention it’s in our own backyard! Sorry about the image, I’m not sure why it’s so fuzzy?

After a short drive we arrived at the “trailhead”. 😉 So where’s all the snow you ask?

700 feet up on dry ground is where. The Sangres is one of the driest ranges in Colorado, so this type of approach is not rare.
Once on the skins though, it was easy(yeah right) cruising up another 3000 ft to the start of the run.

Here’s a shot looking back towards town and the beautiful Arkansas Valley.

The run was a mixture of snow conditions. The top started with breakable crust which led to a mix of powder/crusty areas, then into more spring-like conditions further down. Of course it wasn’t as steep as it looks from afar.



2300 feet later we were at the bottom faced with a heinous exit down the Bear Creek drainage. 👿 This was definately the toughest part of the trip. Bushwacking through a remote creek drainage is not how you want to end a great descent, but that’s the price you pay for a wilderness adventure here.

All in all it was a great trip, more of a “novel” descent than one you would do on a frequent basis, but fun nontheless!