Current Conditions: 11/23 & 11/25 Gore Range & Front Range

With a little time off from work and a hankering to get out and tour a bit, Andy and I decided to check out the east side of the Gore Range this past weekend. Well, I’m usually a fairly optimistic person, but I gotta say this is one of the slowest and driest starts to the ski season I have ever witnessed. To make matters worse what is on the ground is unsupportable sugar snow
which will come back to haunt us for the remainder of the season. Now, there were spots in the state that had little or no coverage, so those areas may do alright when it comes to safe terrain this winter. However, the rest of the zones (Vail, Gore, Indian Peaks, tenmile, mosquito, summit county) will be very tricky and sensitive.

(Click on the images to view a full sized version)

Big Eyes Couloir

Day 1 Andy and I checked out the Willow Creek drainage out of Silverthorne and struggled in finding anything worth skiing. Most of the good lines were still way too thin, so we headed over to the north side of East east Red and partially skied the “Big Eyes” couloir. It was pretty interesting. We didn’t bring technical gear, so we got stopped about 2/3 of the way up by a large rock bulge. What we skied was really nice, but it was occasionally interrupted by a scree field or some rock hopping. Conditions were nice. Really soft and light powder, but no supportable base. Anything that falls on top of this will make things pretty hairy for a while.

Ahhhh, gotta love the Gore approaches

On day 2 we skinned up the Woods Creek drainage just south of Jones pass and skied a fun little gully where we managed to tack on around 1,100′ of vertical. The snow was hard in places and very springlike. Not much powder to be found over this way. Down lower in the gully we did find a little boot-top pow which made for some nice and smooth turns. We spotted a very nice looking line coming off the SE ridgeline of Pettingell Peak. After all this new snow that is about to hit it may be some time before things settle down enough to where we can go back and hit it.

The couloir:

Andy skiing:

As I type a big storm is brewing from the north and south. Looks like this one will favor the SW mountains where they are talking up to 4′ for the Wolf Creek Pass area. I have the entire weekend off so I may just have to go down and check it out. I’m way overdue for a deep pow day this season. Up north they are calling for up to 18″, so not too bad considering our biggest storm this year has been a 9″ wind festival. Cross your fingers and hope for lots of fluffy pow. Maybe I’ll see you out in the backcountry.

Be safe this weekend.