-New TR up under Bookend Couloir-
Mike Fitz sent me a text on monday night asking if I wanted to climb, and so Tuesday morning we load up with Monsees and head over towards Leadvegas in hopes that Chalk might be in. It had been almost 2 seasons since I last climbed so I was eager to get out and swing the tools around a bit even though the powder has been oh-so excellent. We knew that Lincoln was in but wanted somewhere we could take the dogs to hang out with us. Chalk is a nice WI3 fall in a sweet little alcove up a creek tucked away off of 91. As we headed up we were wary if it was going to be in or not and upon first sight we still weren't sure. You can't really see from the pic but there is still running water at the top where it isn't connected on the whole climbers left hand side. Upon further inspection it looked like the right hand side was a go. You could also see that somebody else had already been up it too. Sweet! We were stoked that we were going to be able to get some climbing in! It was pretty crazy climbing at the top as you could see the running water through the ice which was only an inch or two thick. It ended up being an awesome day of climbing and a beer with a stop at Gringo's afterwards was a great cap-off! GREAT DAY OF CLIMBING BUT IM STILL GOING TO WILL LEAVE IT WITH A NICE FACESHOT PIC FROM SUNDAY!
Yesterday Frank Bowman and I toured and skied up in Dry Gulch. We dug a pit that revealed one of the more stable snowpacks that I have seen here in Colorado. We were on a N, NE aspect in a wind loaded gully. We found a 120cm deep pack of well bonded, about finger hardness snow, all the way from the base until about 10cm of fresh new snow from the last storm on top! At the base we found all of this snow sitting on top of a very thin ice layer which was actually bonding the snow to the ground very well. Facets are starting to form, but with this deep of a snowpack already in this zone it is taking longer for them to form and cause a problem. There has also been a lot of wind loading going on but it seems as if warmer temps when we have needed them are helping this new storm and windloaded snow bond well with the pack. Or at least in this zone it is.. With that being said, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to ski today. Joel Paula had contacted me last week in hopes of skiing the SW slopes of Massive, but the snow was lacking down that way. After some discussion I called up Greg Hansen to join and we decided to head up Herman Gulch in hopes of finding some skiing off of the NE face of Citadel. Citadel also known as Snoopy (from Loveland Pass the summit looks like Snoopy lying down) is a prominent 13'er along the Continental Divide with multiple ski lines. We ended up skiing the face lookers left of the summit block. The tour ended up being close to 8 miles, 3000ft, and 7hrs RT. And then came the bootpack up to the saddle.... And the fun commences!
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Justin Ibarra
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