By this point in the summer, photographs of steep South American couloirs and idyllic New Zealand peaks are probably filtering through your Instagram feed. With sweltering summer heat and the end of Fourth of July festivities, you may have admitted defeat, tossed your skis into the closet and traded them in for your mountain bike. But rest assured—there’s still plenty of summer skiing to be had without spending your life savings on a plane ticket to the southern hemisphere—you just have to be willing to work for it.
Here’s the second installment from A Skier’s Guide to Summertime Stoke. All summer long we’ll be sharing from our list of enough summer ski zones to keep you satisfied until the snow falls.
FOURTH OF JULY BOWL: UNCLE SAM’S SECRET STASH
Jonathan Love smears buttery turns down Fourth of July Bowl off Colorado’s Independence Pass on June 22. [Photo] Colter Hinchliffe
SUMMIT ELEVATION: 12,480 ft.
WHEN TO SKI: June and July
MORE INFO: skiingthebackcountry.com
“I was able to link turns on great snow,” says Colter Hinchliffe, of Aspen, who skied the bowl with several friends on June 22. Hinchcliffe planned to ski Independence Pass on July 4th, and says that might be the end of his season. “The approaches and walkouts are beginning to not be worth the ski. The snow is also starting to get fairly sun chopped, which makes it tough to ski. But the snow is still super white which is unusual for us this time of year.”
If you are a summer skier and have an adventure or destination worth sharing, send your story and photos to intern@backcountrymagazine.com. If you missed last week’s destination read Summer Stashes: Blue Peak, Colorado.
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