Ski Adventures in May

Consistent snow in May kept temperatures lower which meant a lot of stuff could be skied later in the day that is normal in May.  Jordan and I headed up and skied Sniktau followed by a fun line on Coon Hill.  Two fun, classic front range lines.

Using cars to shuttle Sniktau is an easy way to get a lot of vertical skied in a relatively short amount of time.

The summit of Sniktau is maybe an hour or so of skinning from the top of Loveland Pass.

Torreys, which we skied the week before, is very socked in and snowy early in the morning.

Jordan and I made quick work of the skin, and were soon standing on top of Sniktau.  We dug a quick pit to check out the snow pack as things were still sliding quite a bit especially on the north side.  The top layers on the south had not consolidated with the winter snowpack, but wasn't very cohesive and certainly wasn't showing any signs propagating.  We dropped into the couloir in very flat light.

Jordan!

The bottom of the couloir had some really fun turns!

We raced down Grizzly Gulch which was noticeably devoid of any grizzlies... Got in some fine follow the leader, small pillows into rotten snow, and some stream skiing.  Jordan naturally informed me he was an X Stream skier, so opted for a drier route...

Still early in the day, we headed for Coon Hill.

Jordon working his way towards the ridge on Coon Hill.

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We got to the summit much later than would normally be safe in the spring, but temperatures were pretty cold all day.  Storms had been moving through all day.

The ridge at Loveland from the other side.

Storms moving across the divide, and particularly Mt. Hagar.

We made quick work of the ski down, and headed out after a fun day!

The next day, Memorial Day, I went for a ski with Erik.  We decided on Hagar.  We rallied up Dry Gulch, and soon could see where Hagar was supposed to be.  There seemed to be a storm just sitting on Hagar and the Citadel.  We still had a ways to go, so thought it might blow off by the time we were ready to ski... We were wrong.

Dry Gulch

The wind increased as we approached the ridge, and was blowing at gale force on the ridge.  It was like January.  We quickly threw on more clothes and struggled up in the fierce wind.

Erik dons his armor on the ridge.

We made it to the sub-summit and could not even see the actual summit much less where we were going.  As I approached the edge of the ridge to see if I could see a line a huge crack went out under my feet... As we suspected.  Severe wind loading was going to make this a no go.  We backtracked down the ridge to a point where we see a short, mellow line near some rocks so we could see where we were going.  It was angled so as not to be wind loaded.  We picked our way down, and ended up skiing some awesome glades on the north side of the gulch.

It was still a fun day.