In June I decided to go on a solo camping/snowboarding trip into the backcountry of CO. With all the extra snow that the Rockies received this year I figured that it would make for a great trip and celebration of my 31st Birthday. My goal was to camp just below Grays and Torryes Peaks (two 14,000ft peaks) and then the next day hike up to the top of Torreys Peak and snowboard down.
The hike in to where I had planned to camp was about 3miles switching back and forth from snow to dirt trail. This made it interesting taking my snowshoes on and off with a 60-70lbs pack on my back.
I found a nice place out in the open tunda field to set up camp at an elevation of about 12,300ft. As I set up my North Face Roadrunner 23 tent I could see the last few people of the day hiking down the trail back to their car. It was about 7 o'clock and the sun was starting to set behind Torreys Peak. So I made some dinner and was off to bed by 10pm.
I had planned on getting an early start and watching the sun come up in the morning. I set my alarm for 5 but was up by 4:30 which gave me a great early morning view of the moon and the approching sunrise.
At around 5am the sun had started to come out and I made breakfast and tore down my tent and got packed up for the hike to the top of Torreys.
I 
took my time getting to the top and all my snowshoes did was slow me down since the air from the night before was cold enough higher up to refreeze the melted snow from the day before. So I left my snowshoes behind and continued up to the top of Torreys Peak.
took my time getting to the top and all my snowshoes did was slow me down since the air from the night before was cold enough higher up to refreeze the melted snow from the day before. So I left my snowshoes behind and continued up to the top of Torreys Peak. 
Once I was to the top of Torreys Peak I hung out there for 20-30min to enjoy the view and then headed back down. 
I decided to drop back in on my snowboard between Grays and Torryes peak feeling that it would be safer since I was riding solo. I made some fast high speed turns back down towards where I had left my snowshoes from earlier. As I approached a blind right turn that had a roller on the back side I had to take quick evasive action to aviod a marmot that was walking out in the snowfield. But we mananaged to aviod each other even though I was coming in hot!
After picking up my snowshoes I hiked back down and grabed the rest of my overnight gear and repacked everything in to my larger pack. From there I hike a little bit further down to a sign on the trail and got my board strapped on for the ride back to the car.
By this time most all the snow was in the process of melting and was having trouble getting my board to slide since I had an extra 50lbs or so of gear on. But once I got going it was a smooth ride back down to my car... kinda of. While riding down on the edge of the strip of snow I noticed that some huge holes had opened up to the river that was about 10ft below. I managed to find two places that looked safe enough to cross the over the river on the snowpack. Fourtunatly for me niether of those two places colapsed as I rode over them. I had reached the end off the snow strip and it was a short walk down to my car about 1/4 of a mile away. Once in the parking lot I celebrated my hiking/snowboarding/birthday adventure with a victory dance, went home and passed out.
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