Minturn to Grassy Meadows Ski: Google map of route:
We met Tom at 11 am at the beginning if the Line Shack road just north of Minturn township. Tom Cleaveland is to do the Hut trips with us later in the month. 
Julz, Tom, Steve, Bill and Bob set out with three dogs to climb to an old Mining hut on top of the divide at Grassy Meadows and ski back. We were to meet up with two other of Julz's ski friends but they had already left as they need to return early. 
The trail to Line Shack from end of Line Shack Road. Including Line Shack Road the total trip up was about 8 kms. This road was used by many ski-dos and the was very heavily tracked. In some case these tracks proved to be an advantage as the ski-dos took many shot-cut on their way down and we were able to skin up these and cut-off large turns. On the way we met many people walking in shoe shoes and some climbing with AT bindings and wide power skis. A notable site was a ski-doer with a very young (3-4yrs) child in a ski tri-cycle ski down hill beside him. The child negotiated the very steep and rough slopes on this device admirably. navigation up the road was a little problematic as the road took a very long route and choosing the short-cut route was not always obvious. Steve and I get ahead and missed a short-cut so we missed out meet Julz's other friend who were heading back at this time.
Our chosen route were very steep (but shorter) and it wasn't until we were near the main ridge line that I began to level out (slightly). At this point we met a power snow chaser and discovered he had also watch the Australian Open Tennis and we had a good discussion of the match. He left us skiing off at increasing speed bouncing from side to side on the powder - I need more practice!
A little further on we saw the Cabin up ahead and made directly through the trees to it. The Cabin was positioned just south-east of the crest of the range commanding spectacular views of the mountains around it. The view of the Gore Range in the north was most impressive with the largest of the craggy peaks dominating the horizon.
From the Cabin, Tom skied back with his 2 dogs along the road we came up, we skied back to the south of the road trying to get away from the ski-dos tracks. We were looking for nice gullies we could telemark turn down. The snow was very silky and excellent to Telemark turn. I would sink into the silk snow and cruise so smoothly around linking into the next turn and carving through the stands Aspen trees. Unfortunately the snow was a little shallow and occasional submerged objects resulted in deep face plants. These falls were extremely difficult to get up again and I'll have to get better at getting out of these deep falls.
We arrived back at the car park about 4pm and were home in comfortable time.
Julz had arranged a Superbowl party at her house this night. The Superbowl is of course the big football game of the year. Steve and i had to admit our ignorance and watch with consider comments. We all helped preparing salads etc and we had very conversation with friends we were now meeting again and again at various events around Edwards township.
Everyone had an early night as they are all outdoors folk and have activities to do the next day.
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