Colorado Backcountry: Loveland Pass - Dave’s Wave

Photo: Alex M. Rider: Dave, JP Location: Sheep Creek - Loveland Pass
We find ourselves at Loveland Pass again bright and early Saturday. Mike and I did a few hitch hike laps and found some great snow in the less traveled areas. The main chutes on the pass and main bowls are very tracked out and very wind blown. The last storm looked like it erased a lot more of the snow base, as we saw tree stumps and rocks not seen since late Oct. We shuttled the good areas on the front side and later met up with Ffej, Mark and Mark from Keystone. We decided to take a hike out the east ridge around toward Arapahoe Basin and hit Dave's Wave. Dave's Wave is a sweet backcountry run with a rad over hanging cornice most of the way down. You can jump off the cornice multiple times and the terrain forms a real nice natural half pipe down to the trees. Once in the trees we were rewarded with completely untracked deep powder and a few nice cliff drops. Ffej airs first, me next, landing in his bomb hole I end up tomahawking after the landing. Sweet! We make it back down to the Arapahoe basin lot and start hitch hiking back up, at this point we run into DrrrtyD and Meisha.. we traverse out to the ironing board and find a nice hip style jump with great landing, we all start throwing front side 3's and even some cab 3's. After hanging out here for a while, we shuttle a few more laps with them and decide to head to the bar. The snow was OK, but lots of wind and sun has killed the deep soft powder conditions. Probably won't be riding until Jackson Hole, WY next week. I'll be back in 10 days or so.