Yeah, I was up there again on Sunday too. The snow is still a little thin, but getting better all the time. I had great runs through Pinball trees and Upper Christmas Trees (after a long climbing traverse), and there was enough (barely) snow to drop the skier's right side of Pinball rock and the rocks above the shack with minimal rock scrapage. Sounds like the forecast is going to give us another couple of feet by tomorrow night. You can bet I will be back up at Monarch tomorrow afternoon.
On another note, I went up and scouted some backcountry terrain off Cottonwood Pass today, and was wondering if anyone has done any skiing off Gladstone Ridge? I am thinking about climbing from the Collegiate Peaks Campground (once the snow settles) for a couple thousand foot descent of some nice looking glades. Looked like fun from the CT above Avalanche Gulch trailhead...
Gladstone ridge ends up at the gladstone mine. AKA ruben's place... He is just about as cool of cat as there is here in BV and his cabin as well as where you will end up is denny creek or around the campground.
Easiest way is to go up there is the ptarmigan road (a mile or so up from denny creek take the ROAD not the TRAIL) the gate was opened Thurs.. This road/trail can take you all the way to the lake if you know where to go.. Some good skiing up there on the right day!! Walk up that road or better hitch a ride with snowmachine.. At the the last switchback there is another old road that will take you over to the ridge... It can be seen on google earth.
I would say that there is not enough snow yet. There are good glades but there is a ton of downfall as well. Some sections of tight, tight, trees.. Sometimes we lap the stuff right off the ptarmigan road if the conditions are right but that is usually in March.
" Some have said that the sensitivity of the snowpack near Monarch Pass area is the touchiest they can remember in many years." CAIC this morning. Talked to Hixon yesterday, he said the things in the Cat Area are going large...without much encouragement. I am gearing up for a powder day tomorrow.
Yeah, there was definitely not enough snow yet. I will probably wait until spring to explore the area thouroughly. Without a snowmobile ride do you think I will still be better off slogging up the road to Ptarmigan creek? It looked like I could possibly climb straight up a ridge-line from Collegiate Peaks Campground.
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Go get some free maps of the area in the next day or two - I'm running a test market for cheap, printable maps & it sounds like they might be helpful. Free until Friday. Participate in the survey (sent out to folks who log in and download maps) if you want to enter to win a GPS.
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"At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
hey flaco, your site is pretty wonky. at first i couldn't proceed past the registration page until i guessed that the required phone number has to be in a "1234567890" instead of a (123)456-7890 format. and once in i wasn't able select map sections for checkout.
logan, harv, anyone else, anybody gonna be up there tomorrow, friday the 19th? looks like im gonna get the day off so I think a day of schralpin at Monarch is in order. if anybody is gonna be over that way gimme a holler and lets meet up for safety and some runs
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every time you eat a steak a hippie's hackey sack goes in the gutter
Thanks for the maps. I downloaded a few for the San Juans. Every one i open after I unzipped crashed my Mac with Leopard OS. I opened them with Preview (*.pdf reader) I have never had an application crash on this thing, except MS office of course......
Not sure what happened, just a heads up.
Scott
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Sport Climbing is Neither
--The Verm
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