Colorado Backcountry: Radiobeacon, Forest Lakes Cirque - Rollins Pass

Submitted by jp on Tue, 06/27/2006 - 07:50

Rollins Pass - Radiobeacon 06/24/2006

Flickr Photo Stream: Click Here
Andy's TGR Report: Click Here



Andy, Lawrence and I met up in Boulder for a mellow day up on Rollins Pass. The goal of the day was to drive as far possible on Rollins Pass Road and make our way to Radiobeacon. The pass road was snowed in at Yankee Doodle Lake making the short one or two mile hike up the road to Forest Lake Cirque a breeze.


After a short discussion we picked out our line and started the bushwhack. We ended up climbing these two shorter couloirs with an enterance right off the ridge of Radiobeacon -- once at the top of the climb we continued out of the couloir up the snowfield on Radiobeacon's ridge.



After a short lunch we dropped into nice soft corn and wide open turns down to the enterance to the couloir and a small choke. Inside the first couloir the snow was very consolidated and firm, only the top inch or so was soft making it almost like a no fall zone.




Directly below the fall line was a line with various rocks and other sharp objects as Lawrence found out the hard way. He hit a hidden moat and lost his edge and slid about 100 ft into a large rock. I'm still not sure how he escaped serious injury but his exploded tele-knee pads and ripped skis took most of the impact.



At the bottom we took a breather and relaxed a bit, Andy and I opted for a second lap and this time hit the couloir on the left. This run started around 1pm so the snow had a little bit more of a chance to slush up and made for some good riding. As the weather brewed we gathered our gear and started the hike back to the truck.