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‘It seems very pretty,’ she said when she had finished it, ‘but it’s rather hard to understand!’ (You see she didn’t like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) ‘Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate’:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my
blurglecruncheon, see if I don’t:

‘Brillig’ means four o’clock in the afternoon, the time when you begin broiling things for dinner:

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Full image Gallery

Scott J joined up with Nate and I for some post-storm touring and a few powder turns. The new snow was low density but there was next to no base – just a thin pile of basal facets on the ground. On our way up to the mellow meadow south of Hidden Knoll we spotted what I thought to be a dicey skintrack heading directly beneath Postage Stamp:

A little further up and saw a few brave souls testing the baseless and thin skier-right South Chute of Hidden Knoll:

We played it safe and skipped the meadow:

A nice tour over to and up the Upper 110′s and we had a nice drop down the Side Pocket Trees:

The new Broom Hut chalet could be spotted from quite a distance:

A rough climb back up Side Pocket and we found soft turns and sharks in the Upper 110′s:

One last meadow drop before we hit the skintrack out:

Turned out to be a pretty nice tour with good weather (no wind) and soft snow but still no base. We saw no recent slide activity and only got a couple of collapses with cracks shooting up to about 10′. Regardless, I felt a little paranoid from last weekend so we played it safe, toured a wide area, and got some nice turns.

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Current Creek Image Gallery

Toured around Current Creek up to Hidden Knoll. Found spooky snowpack with shooting cracks, collapsing, and remotely triggered an R2 D2 below Y Chute.

Avalanche observation report at CAIC.

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Herman Gulch image gallery

Not much to say, still just picking at the bones. Avie conditions were pretty horrible. CTE and CTV columns in Delta. Found a couple of nice short slopes near Herman Lake.

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It got a little better on the Forest Lakes Trail:

And a little better than that on the Arapaho Lakes Trail:

And a little better than that up high. There was hardly any base under the knee- to thigh-deep storm snow, which was low density, cold, and very slow. The exit here is always a bit of a chore, but this was the worst exit ever. The sliding was very slow and it could not be skated due to lack of cover and very little traffic. The skiing was better in October.

Met up with another skier and exchanged info. Hope to ski again in better conditions, JS!

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We hadn’t seen any new snow since Obamney (about a month) but wanted to make some low commitment turns. Shockingly, Nate and I had never been to Jones Pass. We don’t own sleds, and most of our friends don’t, so we usually avoid sledding areas. In midwinter Jones Pass is a mecca for Front Range snowmobiling, so when we’re in the area we usually head to Butler Gulch or Berthoud Pass instead. But, the lack of snow in the early season has kept the sleds at home and we were able to drive most of the way up the pass to about 11,700′.

The main run down from Jones Pass was surprisingly well covered so we poked around and found K-P slab on top of 1.5mm – 3mm facets with another crust layer in the facets. Perfect!

It was a little grabby in the breakable crust on the facets, so a few gymnastic moves were had:

The climb back up was extremely wallowy. We did some on-your-knees powergrovelling:

We hiked over to Point 12700 for another lap and got a nice view back at the first lap:

There was crusty old hardpack nearly up to the exact summit:

Once off the ridge, the main slope off of Point 12700 pitched up to around 33 degrees with an even crustier top:

And it mellowed out a little towards the bottom:

Overall, I was impressed with the accessibility, the lack of sleds (and other people), and the amount of coverage so long after the last storm in a dry early season. Unfortunately, the amount of faceting that has already occurred in the thin snowpack with cold weather is rather upsetting. Once the next big dump comes down, the two facets layers will probably make for some scary unsupportive weak layers.

We drove out near dusk after our noonish crust-fest and headed over to the 1860 Tavern for an 1860 cheesesteak, fish and chips, and some orange jello shots (Broncos game was playing). I like that place.

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The Thanksgiving holiday finally rolled around and I flew out of town like a frozen turkey from a trebuchet. The family gathers annually at our cabin near the West Elk Wilderness so I loaded up the ski gear and headed west.

In a sign of how bad this early snow season has been, I was able to drive my 2003 Accord all the way over Ohio Pass to Crested Butte. The views of The Castles and West Elk Peak were nice:

Nate and I scored free tickets to CB’s opening day, and cruised the White Ribbons of Death Wednesday afternoon. Afterwards, we drove up towards Gothic and scouted conditions. Mount Bellview in the evening light:

On the drive back towards CB I caught a nice evening shot of the Butte:

And the fading sunset over Mount Emmons:

Thursday was turkey day and much feasting was done.

Friday we poked around the Splains Gulch and Mount Axtel. Not much to say about that other than the icy gnarly sled track would have made a nice slide..

On the drive home on Saturday, we decided to stop at Monarch Pass and poke around a little. We found surprisingly nice turns near the pass on a few different slopes:

Then it was a delicious pizza dinner with craft brews at Amicas in Salida, which I highly recommend to anyone in the area. Back in the car, sun sets, and BAM! Smacked a deer at speed on the way home:

Apparently, there have been a LOT of late-season deer strikes in Colorado this year, including three more that showed up after me at the same body shop. December is pretty late for deer migration, and it might have something to do with the lack of early season snow and the mild temperatures. Anyway, watch yourself out there around dusk and dawn..

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Winter storm Obamney rolled through Friday and Saturday 11/9 – 11/10 just in time for the weekend, so Nate and I checked it out.  The early part of the storm was a disappointment, putting down only a few fresh inches instead of the expected 6″-8″ on the I-70 corridor.  We originally planned to check out Butler Gulch or Jones Pass, but decided to drive up the pass to look around.  We saw that there was half-decent cover just minutes from the car, so we decided to bang out a quick lap.

West Side looks a little boney:

With the cover a bit thin and a straightforward climb, we just booted up the East Side:

Transitioned:

And headed down:

From the top of the East Side we had noticed that Noname Bench looked pretty smooth and pillowy, so a quick drive over there was in order. From the Pumphouse Basin parking area we made our way up to treeline and things looked pretty good:

Sure enough, the turns were soft but a little thin:

It was fun but short, so we’d go for another lap or two:

Russell Peak loomed ominously:

And Noname Cirque faded into the clouds and snow:

Another lap was had, near the first:

And I finally got a blurry action shot:

We ended up not even stopping at the Butler Gulch / Jones Pass parking area. It didn’t look like that area got much better than Berthoud, and the approaches are longer. So we rolled back down to the 1860 Tavern in Empire and had a very bizarre green chili snack on the way home. Empire is a strange town..

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Seaman Reservoir Post-Fire Restoration image gallery

I joined up with Wildlands Restoration Volunteers and Rocky Mountain Youth Corps for a long weekend of seeding, raking, and mulching the upper Seaman Reservoir drainage in the High Park Fire burn area.

A few of us even managed to squeeze in a scramble to the summit of “Aiguille du Greyrock”.

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October was almost gone and we had only had two significant snowfalls so far. I found calf deep snow in the JPW after Xena rolled through. I figured it was worth a shot to pack the skis and see what Elvira had left for us. Nate and Otina joined for this “exploratory” mission.

From the trailhead, the cover looked a little better from Elvira than it did after Xena:

Because the cover was only a few inches down low, we booted the South Boulder Creek trail:

The Forest Lakes trail didn’t look much better:

The snow depth gradually increased as we made our way above Arapaho Creek:

At the edge of the familiar meadow we took a good food break and decided to try our luck skinning. This would be the first skinning I’ve done since some time last spring:

We made it up to a known high point above a nice low-angle windloaded gully and pulled the skins off:

And slid gently between the trees:

It was pretty slow moving so we really had to work to wiggle some turns:

Otina didn’t seem to mind the wiggle-turn efforts:

We cut back towards the main area and found a nice steeper shot through some timber:

Otina dodges a branch:

And finds another nice shot:

With the cover as thin as it was, every little bridge was exposed which made for a little excitement:

The skiing pretty much sucked, it was hard work booting up to the deeper cover, the skinning over deadfall was miserable, but in the end we got a few good SOFT turns which made it all worth it. That and some Ned-Mess and fresh ale on the way home made for a beautiful day in the wilderness with good friends. Next time it might actually be good for more than a handful of turns!

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