Today’s ride was upper-402-fourohFred-Farris-Canal-upper, and it was likewise in terrific condition.

Good as it was, I was struck by some things. Primarily, of course, is that it is dry. Even the marshy areas were bone dry- not surprising when the snowpack in the area is at 5% of average, but still eye opening. A fire ban will soon take effect here in Gunnison county, and water restrictions might not be far behind. Riding right now feels much more like fall than spring- the trails are open so early that many of the aspen trees haven’t even budded yet. In any case, here’s some photos of Pete Sowar on Farris:

Quite a few trails are already open- check out the CBMBA page as well as the 14erskiers guide. For those of you looking for some ideas which aren’t on the CBMBA page, here’s a few suggestions: lower 401, 401 as an out and back, Roaring Judy from Jack’s Cabin, or even Texas ridge as an out and back. The sage grouse closures at Hartman’s are done for the year, and Doctor’s Park will be open in a few days as well (closed for sheep currently).

All that said, we’d rather be skiing. Those of you who hung them up long ago might have trouble believing this, but this spring has been excellent- and surprisingly better than last spring in some ways. CO seems to be getting a storm once a week or so, and these small storms have been keeping the snow consistently smooth unlike last season when we kept getting hammered with big storms that would slide out as soon as the sun came out. The best bets right now are high northerly aspects, which doesn’t leave a lot of choices here in Crested Butte other than perhaps Copper Creek. Better choices include San Juan classics like Yankee Boy basin, American Basin, and Cinnamon/Engineer passes, all of which are plowed and open. Independence Pass is open now as well, although the terrain there leaves a bit to be desired. This spring’s MVC (most valuable couloir) might be Mt Hope’s Hopeful Couloir, which has been cranking out great reports all spring. The venerable Dead Dog couloir on Torrey’s has been excellent as well, including last weekend when Brittany skied it with several inches of fresh snow (TR coming soon).

Mark dropping into Dead Dog:

The final conditions report for this area is Cottonwood Pass- yes it’s open but the construction between Jack’s Cabin Cutoff and Taylor Reservoir is pretty substantial- Monarch is a better choice currently.

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We set off from the “Y” on snowmobiles and quickly realized that this would be the last time the snowmobiles come out to play, given all the stretches of dirt we were riding. Last year, we used our snowmobiles into June. Once we got to Owen, it looked like our best choice was the Jenga chute, and we started booting up.

On the ascent, I was still hoping that I would perhaps go past Jenga up onto the hanging face above it, which are some of my favorite turns in the area. But, we could still feel windslabs that didn’t inspire the confidence needed to ski an exposed route like the hanging face. I dropped in first and as is often the case, the skiing was quite good so long as you kept your eyes glued to the surface texture- “Ripply” snow, as we call it, was powder while smoother surfaces were damp slabs.

Brittany:

Jenga, short and sweet as always, on the left. Previous’ days tracks which stopped below the summit near the spire.

Afley, looking a lot less like the ice cream cone that it is:

A great day, to be sure, but also a sign that the end is coming, and much sooner than we’d like it to. We’re off to Silverton tonight, hopefully to find one last good dose of steep skiing before it ends. Check out our new affiliate Jenson- quite often one of the cheapest sites to visit for bike parts:

On Saturday we set our initial sites on Axtell. Being the day after a storm that came in with a lot of wind, we decided to try to stay below treeline. As we drove out the Kebler Pass road, we quickly realized that the snow-bridge that had given skiers easy access to Axtell the week before was now melted. This doesn’t mean Axtell is impossible to ski. But, it certainly makes it harder to access- more difficult than we wanted to deal with for something like Axtell. So, we decided on a back-up plan– to “backcountry ski” at ski area we would go.

A fox was there to greet us.

Frank wished the T-bar was still running.

The scenery was beatified with a touch of the new snow.

A look up the Gothic Road / East River Valley shows that the valley is quite dry. In fact, after skiing, we decided to check it out and could drive all the way to the closure at the East River crossing about a mile outside of Gothic.

To the Headwall!

Although slabby from the wind, we still enjoyed the Headwall ski. Frank.

Me.

A look back at our tracks.

Lower down the turns were even better.

Big track, little track

A few days later, I headed up to the same area for an after work solo ski. Here’s a couple of shots from ski day 112.

I like corn

With 112 days in the bag, I’m still in good shape to try to achieve my goal of 120 ski days. With my full-time job, this takes some work. Even more work in this bad snow year we are having. Still, I have hope and a goal. And I think I can get there if I continue to try Who cares if they all think I’m crazy. I’ve never really been normal anyway. Most of all, I’m still having fun!

Now’s the time to buy your ski gear for next year. That’s what I did, here, at Altrec. Please help support 14erskiers by clicking on the link below. Thanks!

Ski: The Crested Butte zone lacks good high trailheads and high peaks (most peaks in this area fall just short of 13,000′), making things difficult in late spring. The Irwin zone is currently a good choice, with the road through the townsite plowed and decent access (skins on at the car) to peaks like Owen. Snowmobiles are no longer warranted, unless we get a big dump. Kebler is closed but plowed at the “Y”- some work is being done on it and it won’t be open for a couple more weeks. Slate is open to Pittsburg and beyond, though you’ll be walking at first. The snowpack still looks good up at Paradise divide (despite the low snowpack, the remaining snow is actually quite good- not too runneled or dusty yet). Gothic road is now open to the bridge just before Rustler’s Gulch. Again, you’ll be walking. Those are currently the best access points around here. That said, we may take advantage of higher traiheads in the San Juans next weekend.

Bike: Hartman’s Rocks in Gunnison has been open for a while, with conditions reportedly “very dry and dusty”. The bigger rides South of the powerline, like Aberdeen, will be closed for another 2 weeks for Sage Grouse habitat. Open rides in Crested Butte include Upper, Upper Upper, Whetstone Vista, Lupine, and the Caves loop in CB south. 409 has seen tire tracks as well. Reports from Strand are of a muddy trail that isn’t quite ready. Snodgrass hopefully won’t be long. Trail conditions can also be found HERE.

That’s about it- if anyone has more info, please leave a comment.

On the road we saw evidence that the bears were awake, and likely starving after a long winter of torpor and little food to eat in the area.

The Headwall was looking pretty good!

But there was still lots of brown in the lower elevations.

We enjoyed the evening sun near the peak.

And the views were spectacular in the waning light.

Happy to be here!

Frank, ready to go on the upper entrance.

Me.

The smile says it all:)

Frank left a cloud of snow behind him.

The Headwall skied so well that we decided to make our way over to the Tower 11 chutes.

Frank.

Me.

I don’t think I’ve skied the Headwall in better conditions this year. With a full lap taking easily less than 2 hours, it’s well worth the effort, especially as an after work outing. Let’s hope that Mother Nature still has some spring snow in store for us

Strangely, we haven’t been to this summit before, even though it isn’t far from Crested Butte’s version of the sheep pen- the Anthracites. In fact, although these lines frequently get favorable comments from ski tourers when seen from the top of the Anthracites, I can’t remember ever seeing tracks there or hearing of parties making it out there (which isn’t to say it hasn’t been skied, but is rather a comment on Ohio Peak’s relative unpopularity). We skipped the snowmobiles, since Kebler Pass is currently plowed to the “Y”, intending to make our way up the established Anthracites skin track, and follow the NE ridge from there. Luck was on our side this morning, however, and we were able to catch a snowmobile ride far above Floresta thanks to a cabin caretaker.

Ohio Peak actually has two summits. This one is marked on topo maps as Ohio Peak, at 12,271′, and the couloir that drops from the summit caught our eye:

Meanwhile, the North face of the higher, but unmarked, 12,290′ summit was really calling my name:

Needless to say, we stayed well away from the cornices on the ridge:

We reached the top of the line and enjoyed the sights from our new vantage point. This line looks amazing, but access would make it a difficult day mission…

The Castles never get old:

I dropped in first:

Brittany followed- still finding plenty of powder:

We had originally considered skiing this couloir, with the distinctive “Moose’s Tooth” feature at its top, but it is pretty short:

The face off the higher unnamed summit was still calling my name, and since we had such great conditions on our first run, we headed up the aesthetic North ridge for a second run.

We had a great view of our tracks from the ridge:

Once again, we stayed tight to the ridge:

I would really like to ski the pyramid peak in the center of this photo, though I’m not sure how to do it without an overnight:

Once again, I got first tracks down this beautiful and interesting face:

Brittany makes her way down the face:

Video from both runs. My second run was nearly a disaster thanks to a zipper faux pas… I got really lucky…

A quick traverse and skin brought up to the top of the Anthracites’ Northwest Bowl…

One last look at our tracks on the face:

This line in Northwest bowl is another one I’ve looked at for a long time, but hadn’t yet skied (Brittany):

First non-powder turns of the day:

A day well-spent:

View of the two Ohio Peaks from Irwin the following day:

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And of course, you can wear flip flops after shredding pow in April…

My friend Alex was already heading up when I talked to her, and thankfully she was willing to wait for me since it seems most everyone is working or out of town right now. There was some slide activity within the new snow, but mostly from the day before, so we kept it pretty conservative. Anyway, on to the photos…

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Not surprisingly, I found no willing partners. This was probably a better solo mission anyway. I took both wheels off and strapped them onto my snowmobile, and strapped the frame onto my backpack. Bike shorts were worn under my ski pants (maybe this should be a new style for me- it was comfy!), and bike shoes and helmet were both packed away in my backpack. The only bummer was the wind- it was really cranking up there so I had to call it a day after just one lap. Good times! Enjoy the video:

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Afley’s SE face is still “in and thin”. Meanwhile, the foreground is a bit dry on the ridge- as is the trail that traverses this area. Dry trail…hmmn. (coming soon)

Ben drops in- a solid 15′ away from the sleds:

From the bottom of the couloir, we headed towards Peeler. Normally this is a fun snowy ridge, but it’s already melted out this year with lots of little pungee trees in the way of easy travel. The dry Oh-Be-Joyful valley and Crested Butte from the summit:

We had heard via the CBAC that a small storm had dropped a few inches at the Schofield Snotel site, but that certainly wasn’t the case here on Peeler. Maybe a trace. Oh well. Look, it’s the best pow turn of 2012:

We found a Porcupine tail and Ben got excited about all the new flies he could tie with the fur:

The poor thing had one last surprise, though:

The lower pitches of Peeler were surprisingly excellent corn. All in all, we dropped about 2500′ to Oh-Be Joyful creek. Looking up the last pitch. This would be so good in powder, but tough to get to on a regular basis.

We worked our way up the valley, which wasn’t easy at first.

Beautiful views of Afley, Oh-Be Joyful, and Hancock:

Usually you can’t see Purple’s S-couloir in all its glory. Except from here:

This roundabout back towards Scarp’s ridge took a bit longer than we had anticipated. That’s the price you pay when you get to start at the top and ski down. It took forever, but we finally made it to Star Pass (aka the other Star Pass):

Ben nearing the pass, with Democrat Basin behind:

At this point, my camera battery, which I had been nursing all day long, finally died. We traversed around, booted up one of the Scarp Ridge couloirs, and walked dry trail back to our sleds. So I got to check off the Scarp couloirs on my list. They’re short, but very visible from CBMR, so it will be nice to look back at them and remember this crazy year.
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