Word and Photos: Ben Gavelda

Sunlight slowly starts pouring into the deep San Juan Mountain valley as Alex Yoder and I head down Main Street in Silverton, Colorado. It’s cold, quiet, and the snowpack is unfortunately thin, with a musty spring dust atop the ground. The town’s Victorian beauty still shines through even in the dead, dry winter. Main Street, a row of colorful, ornate storefronts and homes hardly altered from the post-mining era. We wind north out of town up the Cement Creek drainage towards the small outpost of Silverton Mountain, peeling past countless creeks and avalanche paths, mining wreckage and random cabins. Pulling into the “base area,” I feel a sense of relief seeing hardly anything has changed in the 23 years this place has been operating. Storage containers, rows of porta-potties, fuel tanks, multi-colored rusty Toyotas, machinery, and random junk—it all fits right in.

We pool together at the base with a mix of media, guides, mountain ops, Patagonia crew, and ambassadors Forrest Shearer and Brooklyn Bell. Two helicopters hover above with deafening thunder, loading other groups and refueling. After the safety briefing, I hop on the old two-seater chair with Forrest. The re-purposed lift came from Mammoth Mountain and even has the same faded green metal from their old lifts. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and the slow lift is the perfect place to catch up. He tells me he’s splitting time between Ojai and Mammoth, California. I tell him I’m grinding away, managing construction builds in Jackson, Wyoming, still squeezing in snow projects here and there. We laugh and trade memories of a past trip to the San Juan Mountains. Way back in 2009, he, Blair Habenicht, Chris Coulter, Zach Siebert, Chris Wellhausen, and I struggled through something like 80 miles of splitboarding with huge packs, early splitboard gear, and variable snow conditions. We were young, eager, and optimistic, and got completely humbled by these mountains. Our gear was also rough and heavy. It’s crazy to see how far simple things like outerwear and packs have come 16 years later.

That’s the main reason we’re here: to dive into the new offerings from Patagonia and get some face time with the whole crew. True to its ethos, Patagonia continues to push design parameters and lessen environmental impacts. They’ve fully revamped their iconic PowSlayer outerwear with a new PFAS-free Gore-Tex Pro fabric and a slew of other details. The fabric is an impressive 30% lighter. It’s quieter, more packable, softer, and easier to move in. It’s been years in the making, with backcountry snowboarders Alex Yoder, Forrest Shearer, Marie France Roy, and Nick Russell all putting the gear through a beating everywhere from El Chalten in South America to Revelstoke, BC, to California’s Eastern Sierra and beyond. The testing is still happening now, right here in the rugged San Juans.

While we’re on the topic of gear, let's just dive in. Patagonia launched the award-winning PowsSlayer jacket and pants in 2012. Still to this day, it’s the go-to for most of the snow team. “These are the number one outerwear pieces I grab every day I go riding,” says Forest Shearer. “It really is the pinnacle piece, the do-it-all. It’s crazy light, simple, with pockets in the right place, and a nice freeride cut fit.” Some of the key things I dug were the subtly billowed chest pockets, the minimal waist gaiter, and stretchy articulated hood gussets. There are so many more fine details designers. Maggie Elder and industry veteran Eric Wallis snuck in to round out the kit, making it more functional than ever.

The outerwear and layering pieces are impressive, no doubt, yet I gravitated towards the new PowSlayer Pack. It’s quickly become my go-to backcountry pack. Crazy light, stripped down, simple, and effective. It feels nearly on par with a Hyperlite pack in terms of weight. It has a full zip access back panel (I can run a full camera kit in it), and generous hip belt pockets (not like the barely usable ones on most packs). Perfect strap designs (vertical board carry, poles/ice axe carry, A-frame splitboard carry, compression straps).

Back at the mountain, we crest a mellow 12,300’ and roll off the chair. Then we strap our boards to our packs and begin ascending the ridge towards Storm Peak. The air is thin and cold, but the sun and views abound, and there’s hardly a whisp of wind. Talk slows as everyone maintains breath and falls in line with all eyes scouring the horizon. We billygoat along the wind-swept tundra, our feet in icy foot holds, hands over lichen-crusted boulders, then find a notch to strap in and drop. Soon we scratch across a wide panel of snow and down into a tight little couloir. There are still scraps of powder, a large apron, and a gully of untouched snow below. We continue with more lift, hike, scratch-our-way-down runs, mining the last bits of white gold from the past storm.

For more info on the PowSlayer Freeride Kit check out Patagonia's website right here