OUR STORY
We love what we do!
Sandy Kobrock
I grew up skiing in Maine with my family. My hometown boasts a ski area where I skied and raced every day after school. During college I moved to Oregon where I began river running in the college’s Outdoor Program, and skied on the college ski team. After graduation I worked in the nascent outdoor industry in various capacities: as a river guide, Outward Bound mountaineering and river instructor, ww canoe instructor, and a PSIA certified telemark instructor. While living in Oregon, I did plenty of backcountry multi-day ski tours and peak ascents/descents in leather hiking boots and Silveretta bindings. I moved to Tahoe in the early 80’s to work as a professional ski patroller at Palisades Tahoe. Moving to Colorado in the early ’90’s, I worked as the patrol director at Wolf Creek Ski Area. Upon retirement from patrolling, I began operating the Pass Creek Yurt and teaching backcountry avalanche courses for the the Wolf Creek Avalanche School and the Silverton Avalanche School, to the current time.
Over our years together Mark and I have enjoyed multi-day backcountry tours in the Rockies, the Sierra Nevada, and the Alps. I remain an avid kayaker, rafter, and backpacker. In my partial retirement I enjoy being on the river with friends, reading, cooking good food, and exploring new places.
Mark Mueller
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and started skiing in high school. I moved to the Lake Tahoe area after high school and began a life of skiing and mountain living. An early interest in avalanches led to career that included ski patrolling for many winters at Palisades Tahoe (Squaw Valley back then). An opportunity to join the Colorado Avalanche Information Center as an avalanche hazard forecaster brought Sandy and I to Pagosa Springs which has been our home since 1992. I’ve always been an backcountry skier and we saw an opportunity to begin start a small backcountry skiing business on the Rio Grande National Forest. We obtained a Special Use Permit and constructed the Pass Creek Yurt in the fall of 1997. I retired from professional avalanche work in 2020 after spending 43 years enjoying the best job I ever could have dreamed of.
Since retirement my primary efforts have been to continue to operate the Pass Creek Yurt and ski as much deep powder as I can around Wolf Creek, the western US, and during international trips to Europe and Asia.
I also like to spend time, reading, gardening, hiking and backpacking, river running, biking, and just kicking back and watching the snowflakes fall and the birds at the feeders out the front windows.
Casey Bristow
I grew up in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and started night skiing in the Poconos when I was about 8. I moved west in my early 20s and spent a number of years in Colorado and California working a combination of software and ski area jobs. In the mid 2000’s I began working as a wildland firefighter and protection officer for the Forest Service. I spent the majority of the next 17 years on the San Juan NF in Pagosa Springs fighting fire, building trail and patrolling almost 600,000 acres of forest. It was an amazing experience that allowed me to spend thousands of hours over almost two decades developing my bushcraft, learning the ways of the mountains, and deepening my love of the San Juans.
My early experiences working at ski areas provided my first exposure to backcountry skiing and avalanches. I took an Level 1 class while working at Eldora and a Level 2 the following season in Crested Butte. I moved to Pagosa a few months later and spent a couple seasons bumming around Wolf Creek riding lifts and touring the backcountry. I took a second Level 2 course with Sandy and Mark at the Wolf Creek Avalanche School, and the following winter Sandy asked me to help out with their classes, sending me to get my Level 1 Instructor.
For the next several years I was fortunate enough to apprentice under both of these amazing people, skiing powder and helping to teach classes here on Wolf Creek Pass. It was during this time that I earned my AIARE Level 3 certification and Level 2 Instructor at the Silverton Avalanche School. Most importantly I gained two of the best friends and ski partners I could have asked for. Thank you Mark and Sandy!
When not helping to operate the Pass Creek Yurt, I enjoy traveling with my wife and son as we explore our National Parks and Forests, and teaching my son about skiing powder, avalanches, and other craft a budding mountain man needs to know!
The Story of Pass Creek Yurt
In 1995 Sandy, who at the time was the Ski Patrol Director at the Wolf Creek Ski Area, learned that the Rio Grande National Forest was interested in developing winter recreation opportunities in the National Forest. She and her husband Mark applied for the Special Use Permit with the USFS and began a search around Wolf Creek Pass to identify possible locations for a non-permanent lodging structure that met the Forest Service’s requirements. They didn’t own a snowmobile so the search was done on skis in the winter and on foot in the summer.
In the winter of 1997 they found a spot that met their requirements and those of the Forest Service. The location was an open, south-facing flat spot, the result of 1970’s and 80s logging operations, surrounded by north-facing ski terrain. The ski terrain looked great, and the location appeared to benefit from the ample snowfall of Wolf Creek Pass. Winter access was a moderate three-mile ski via logging roads, and there was summer vehicle access for construction and maintenance of the Yurt.
With Permit in hand from the Forest Service they ordered a 20-foot yurt from Pacific Yurts based near Eugene, Oregon. At that time Pacific Yurts was the sole company in the US to offer an engineered “snow load kit”, a necessity for this location at 10,250’ near Wolf Creek Pass, known for “the most snow in Colorado”.
“The yurt arrived from Oregon in October. With the help of friends began construction that Fall of 1997. We battled some early snowfalls, but the yurt was in place before the snow got too deep. The Pass Creek Yurt was born!”
Over the years they’ve added numerous improvements, many suggested by our guests (thank you!). The skiing has been as good as they had hoped, which was the intention from the beginning.
In 2019, after many years of letter writing, the USFS designated the area around the Pass Creek Yurt non-motorized.
The Yurt has held up very well over all these years, thanks to the solid materials and quality construction of Pacific Yurts, along with the care our guests render the PCY who love and care for it as they would a beloved family member. Our guests return year after year to enjoy the quiet, solitude, camaraderie, adventure, simplicity, and in winter, good powder turns. It is a special place, and we feel so fortunate to be able to share it.
