My friend Erin and I set out in April of 2016 to climb the classic snow ridge route to North Star Mountain. I was relatively new to snow and using ice axe techniques so I was stoked to get our and put my new skills to the test.

When we got to what we determined to be the summit our GPS coordinates didn’t match one another and we suspected the true summit was further along the ridge.

We decided to proceed further so we didn’t short ourselves of the actual proper summit. 

Luckily the bluebird weather afforded us the time to traverse further along the narrow ridge. We watched skiers descending Cristo Couloir across the basin on Quandary Peak and some that came up and descended North Star. A local Breckenridge ski favorite with minimal crowds.

After the hike we stopped in Breck for a sandwich and beer at Broken Compass Brewery before heading back to Denver.

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If you stop in Breckenridge, check out Broken Compass Brewing or Outer Range in Frisco.

Grab food from one of these places: Coffee at Cuppa Joe, tacos and awesome margaritas from Rita's Tacos, sandwiches from Duggan's or Cabin Coffee Co.