Quandary Peak
(14,265ft)
Location: Southern Tenmile
Route: Ascent-East Ridge. Descent-East Bowls
Length/Elevation Gain: 7 miles RT. 3500ft gain. 2 hours to summit. 3 hours RT
Group: Solo
TH: Mcullough Gulch
How easy would it be to be a meteorologist in Colorado? What was forecasted to be the start of the next storm cycle coming in ended up being another beautiful bluebird day in the high country. After working graveyard I was pretty tired and so pretty much went right to sleep when I got home at 7AM. A few hours of sleep later and I wake up to see how the weather had unfolded beautifully for the day. I was initially going to just go do a couple laps on LCM but after seeing blue skies and sunshine my thoughts quickly changed. Where can I go up high and ski a relatively safe line? I got on 14ers and checked out the conditions page to find pics of Quandary's East bowls filled in nicely. I had to pick up Tiana from work in Breck anyways so it seemed a great fit for the afternoon. I gathered my gear and was on the trail at 1:45pm. Being Quandary, I expected to see at least a few people especially with the weather what it was but I ended up having the entire mountain to myself! I made quick work of the ascent and was on the summit by 3:45, 2 hours from the TH. Winds were light to moderate until I hit the final ridge and once on the summit was welcomed with sustained, COLD, moderate to heavy winds. Welcome to Colorado.
Enjoy the pics. The surrounding area is filling in very nicely for a great spring season!
At this point it was questionable if I should ski the bowl proper or just ski the east ridge down. From here, I was leaning more towards skiing the ridgeline down but as I got further up the ridge I felt that I could manage a ski down the middle of the bowl proper. Sure enough once I got all my pics taken care of from the summit I put my split together and ensued. I pretty much skied right down the gut and then cut hard right towards the bottom of the pitch to regain the ridge. The snow quality was meh, semi-hard packed wind slab most of the way but it was still fun. Once I regained the ridge I had to walk a little ways before I was able to strap back in and ski the lower bowl and all the way back to the truck. It ended up being a great quick afternoon tour with a bonus of skiing a winter 14er!