Colorado Backcountry: Loveland Pass Trees

 
Loveland Pass Trees Video - (right click - save as)
Spent the last 3 days riding endless pow up on the pass. The north facing trees are completely going off right now and there is still plenty of fresh tracks to rip. We started early Friday morning, met up with Tele Adam at the first lot around 6:45am. After a beacon check we quickly got our gear and started to hitch, took a warm up lap down the main chute and it was awesome. 3-4" fresh and lots of wind blown snow the conditions weren't bad at all. After another lap or two we decided to start hiking the ridge from the pass summit. Bailey (Adam's dog) lead the way and we followed his boot pack toward the ridge. We decided to play it safe and ski the mellower lines near the first sadle. Keeping an eye on each other and the dog we dropped one at a time down the north facing fingers out on to the ironing board. The snow was really nice above tree line and we easily had deep turns all the way down to the flats. Back down at the car we hitched up again and made our way further along the ridge, hitting each little pow gulley. After 4 laps hiking the ridge, Adam took off and I did a few more tree runs.

 
Saturday we met back up at the pass again, Adam and I decided to hike again only to find out the previous nights high winds removed most of the snow above tree line and made for some dangerous avy conditions. We played it safe and dropped before the first ridge saddle down to the safety of treeline. On the summit it was like 15 degrees F and the wind was blowing bad. We decided on doing laps in the trees and it was great. Stay away from the main areas and you can have endless pow runs pretty much all day. On top of the 5" additional snow the pass recieved Friday night things were going off! We spent most of the day shuttling the more hidden areas of the pass and just having fun. It was great seeing everyone and meeting new people too. Big shouts to my homie Sarah from Boulder, Jay from Aspen and Adam's boy Alex. Nice turns. Stayed up on the pass until 6:45pm and we still got caught up in the I70 traffic mess. Be ware!

 
Sunday came with no new snow, I met Mike and the crew up at the pass around 6:30am. We started car shuttling right away and still managed to find plenty of untracked pow in the trees. Did 9 or 10 laps, and after everyone riding for days straight we called it a day and beat traffic back down.

The video from this weekend was mostly filmed on Saturday at pass in the north facing trees. The snow was very light and cold, super blower pow. Drifts up to a couple of feet deep, lots of wind blown features to slash. 20-30" base in the trees, best coverage I've seen in a few years. Please right-click and choose save as to download the movie and save bandwidth.