Colorado Backcountry: September Turns - Ptarmigan Glacier - Rocky Mountain National Park

iskibc is an excellent photog, check out his amazing pictures and trip report. TGR Report

I got a call from my buds iskibc and dave j. about the recent snow storms in the northern colorado mountains. we checked the snotel reports and confirmed rabbit/buffalo pass area got 14" fresh. we knew the northern zone would good so we planned a trip to ptarmigan glacier in rocky mountain national park. we pass the gates at 5:00am and made our way up to bear lake trailhead. from here we hiked up to flattop mountain and into 80mph winds and blowing snow. we couldn't see shit, i am still surprised at how dave was able to navigate. cold as hell. anyways, we blasted our way up the ridgeline toward the glacier. it was slow going, and after another hour or two we reached the top of the glacier and found a huge cervasse. very deep and it was already partly covered with the new snowfall. the glacier was crazy, complete black ice with little pockets of fresh snow. there was no way in hell we were getting down the top part of the glacier so we had to downclimb almost 500ft in some of the crappiest loose rock i'd ever seen. we finally made it past the huge amount of glacial ice to a spot were we could get a few turns. we were expecting much better snow conditions on the glacier, but the winds were so high that all the snow was blown way down into the trees. if we would have taken the easy way and hiked to the base of the glacier and then climbed up we would have seen it wasn't worth it. iskibc always likes to take the hard way. so that was that, we decided to hike out. on the way i found a pretty sweet climbing rope at the bottom of the basin so i hiked that out.. along with a lot of extra gear we didn't use. hahah.. all in all we logged 9-10 miles and some fresh turns. more pics coming soon