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.
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!