EMSC
Well-known member
Starting off a 'SW sampler' road trip with 2 days at the Butte. My brother and a friend did a week at CB/Monarch cat ski and my wife & I were able to join them for the final couple days (that darn w-o-r-k thing again).
CB & gunison definitely have snow this year. Way above normal snow pack in town and even down through the whole of Gunnison county. Last trip here was the 'big' snow year of 2005, and this year is way above that level of snowpack.
Day 1: sunny, fairly warm, no wind, gorgeous spring day. Unless or until the storm cycle comes back, it is all about elevation and aspect in Colo. Lower slopes, flat spots and non-North facing areas warm up slush up, etc... but the North facing steeps (aka nearly all of CB's extreme terrain) are firm but chalky. Though not frontside items in the banana/peal areas.
Started off wih one run with the girls then the 3 guys hitting headwall on down to the north face/spellbound/etc... cesspool, phaser, dead bobs, phoneix chute, spellbound trees, etc... all but the double hike 3rd bowl and teocalli.
Great day finished with margarita's on the butte 66 deck.
Day 2: windy, overcast, flurries. Warmup run on headwall which was just in time as Silver Queen HSQ shut right after that for the day. Similar menu as day 1 on the north face areas until a late lunch at paradise with a few runs with the wives in the afternoon on paradise & east river. With soft corn & slush on East River and winter snow higher up - on Paradise (though wind blasting on the very top part). sheets of ice on the lower part of the frontside as we found atthe end of the day heading to the base (groomer tracks from overnight were still frozen in place on lower half of the front). But still a good ski day really.
Got some great pics, but have a mini laptop with me and have no software loaded to shrink the pics to admin's limits so will add sometime next week.
PS forgot to mention that in spite of the huge snowpack, a lot of the enterances to the various North Face bowls were very rocky and generally boney. A very, very windy winter in Colo this year has some areas of the mtns huge in snow and others very thin (especially ridges & exposed open areas...)
CB & gunison definitely have snow this year. Way above normal snow pack in town and even down through the whole of Gunnison county. Last trip here was the 'big' snow year of 2005, and this year is way above that level of snowpack.
Day 1: sunny, fairly warm, no wind, gorgeous spring day. Unless or until the storm cycle comes back, it is all about elevation and aspect in Colo. Lower slopes, flat spots and non-North facing areas warm up slush up, etc... but the North facing steeps (aka nearly all of CB's extreme terrain) are firm but chalky. Though not frontside items in the banana/peal areas.
Started off wih one run with the girls then the 3 guys hitting headwall on down to the north face/spellbound/etc... cesspool, phaser, dead bobs, phoneix chute, spellbound trees, etc... all but the double hike 3rd bowl and teocalli.
Great day finished with margarita's on the butte 66 deck.
Day 2: windy, overcast, flurries. Warmup run on headwall which was just in time as Silver Queen HSQ shut right after that for the day. Similar menu as day 1 on the north face areas until a late lunch at paradise with a few runs with the wives in the afternoon on paradise & east river. With soft corn & slush on East River and winter snow higher up - on Paradise (though wind blasting on the very top part). sheets of ice on the lower part of the frontside as we found atthe end of the day heading to the base (groomer tracks from overnight were still frozen in place on lower half of the front). But still a good ski day really.
Got some great pics, but have a mini laptop with me and have no software loaded to shrink the pics to admin's limits so will add sometime next week.
PS forgot to mention that in spite of the huge snowpack, a lot of the enterances to the various North Face bowls were very rocky and generally boney. A very, very windy winter in Colo this year has some areas of the mtns huge in snow and others very thin (especially ridges & exposed open areas...)
