{"id":810,"date":"2008-06-01T08:37:38","date_gmt":"2008-06-01T14:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/?p=810"},"modified":"2009-11-05T08:39:23","modified_gmt":"2009-11-05T14:39:23","slug":"queen-basin-whiterock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/queen-basin-whiterock\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Basin\/ Whiterock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apologies in advance for the lack of action shots&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I wasn&#8217;t in the mood to drive anywhere or put too much effort into anything given the weather forecast for temps which weren&#8217;t supposed to reach freezing.  Brittany and I drove out the recently opened Gothic road to see what things looked like.  In the evening light, one of my favorite routes anywhere, which we call &#8220;White Widow&#8221; looked melted out.  As it turns out, it was still in except for a little bit at the top.  Plan B was to ski &#8220;El Nacho&#8221;, something I skied in &#8217;97 or &#8217;98, but not since.  My friends Luke and Jeremy decided to join us as well.<\/p>\n<p>Brittany hiking, with Gothic mountain behind:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/Picture003.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>A little higher up, with Crested Butte behind:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/Picture005.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Once we got a little higher, we determined that the Elks were indeed still holding snow in June:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/Wetterhorn207.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I hadn&#8217;t been up high in this area for a while, so it&#8217;s always fun to get a different view.  CB and Whetstone:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0362.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>A HUGE slide occurred this winter (2-9-08) in the bowl below us.  Here&#8217;s a couple of shots from the Crested Butte Avalanche center:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cbavalanchecenter.org\/images\/687419565image.JPG\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cbavalanchecenter.org\/images\/687419568image.JPG\"><\/p>\n<p>We could still see the evidence:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0369.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>L-R, the many summits of Avery, Precarious, and Pyramid.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0359.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Different view of Maroon (S)  (seen through the saddle):<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0366.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Whiterock looks fun off the summit:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0374.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>The old East Maroon wagon trail and pass are pretty obvious:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/Wetterhorn215.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I was a little bummed that White Widow was mostly in, since it&#8217;s one of the best couloirs I&#8217;ve skied, but I guess we&#8217;ll hit it another day:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0508.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Our intended route, &#8220;El Nacho&#8221; looked pretty poor, so we changed plans a bit.  Queen basin has a bunch of couloirs, called the ten little indians, so Jeremy picked one:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0390.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Brittany and I choose a fun hanging face instead:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0417.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Brittany:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0424.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0458.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>We came out under El Nacho.  Get it? Notch &#8211;> Notch-o  &#8211;> El Nacho?  Not sure who named it.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0498.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>I was a little worried about crossing Copper creek, but it wasn&#8217;t too bad.  Luke kept his helmet on, Safety First!!  \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i244.photobucket.com\/albums\/gg23\/franksblog\/10%20little%20indians\/IMG_0506.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>The last time I skied this area, the skiing through the forest was a rotten mess.  Sunday, even walking back through the patchy stuff after noon, the snow was still amazingly solid, even though it was a light freeze.  I was only sinking in an inch or two, and the air temp felt like it was at least 60 by then.  It&#8217;s amazing how a good snowpack stays good, and a bad one stays bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apologies in advance for the lack of action shots&#8230; I wasn&#8217;t in the mood to drive anywhere or put too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/14erskiers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}