With high pressure still gracing us with this beautiful weather Frank Bowman, Scott Winn and I decided to head up to Peru Creek for some exploration. Hopes were to find some nice North facing trees to ski. A brisk -6 degree skin to start the morning quickly warmed as the sun started to crest into the valley floor. Although avalanche activity is starting to slightly dwindle we all knew that the dragon is still lurking and that we wanted to stay away from open slopes and/or anything tipping the 35 degree mark. We got some good looks at Cadillac and Corkscrew on the way up as well as the rest of the many avy paths that drop North off Tip Top and Morgan Peaks. We could see a few old slides from last week but didn't notice any recent activity.
As we found ourselves at the fork of Chihuahua Gulch we were faced with a decision. We all agreed that from what we could see up drainage it did not look like we had too many options to ski. The wind has been doing some heavy scouring up at higher elevations. One option would be to skin up towards Torreys/Grays and try and find something to ski. We then saw a nice looking set of trees off of Morgan Peak between Warden Gulch and the Corkscrew path. Briefly we discussed our ascent route and plan of attack and were then on our way up. On the skin up we encountered huge surface hoar crystals from all the cold and clear nights we have been having. Although North facing, we did find some fairly consolidated and supportable snow for the majority of the skin up. In one section we found ourselves bordering the 35 degree mark but after about 20min of discussion we pushed on and weaseled our way up through the semi-open treed area. During our ascent we saw no real signs of instability. We dug a hand pit about mid way up our route to verify our thoughts and we were supremely stoked on what we had found. Then at about 11,300ft we hit snowline coupled with sustained 15-20mph winds. Its amazing what the wind does to snow in this state! After a quick snack we booted up the ridge to a highpoint about 500ft or so from the true summit. Beautiful views all around of the Gore, Torreys/Grays, and Peru Creek drainage. Being up in the alpine on days like this are hard to beat!