Snakebite

I skied the Snake Couloir on Mount Sneffels today with Luther Birdzell. The forcast was for extremely high winds, but they stayed at bay until we were off of the summit. Conditions were prime for skiing the steep stuff after the recent snow storms: chalky powder on a well consolidated base. It made for super fun skiing in the 50+ degree, narrow couloir. The road into Yankee Boy Basin is plowed to over 11,000 feet so getting to the summit via the normal, southside route is easy: 3 hours from the car.
We rapped off the summit into the Snake, then skied to 12,000 feet in Blaine basin from where we could skin back over Dyke Col and return to Yankee Boy.
All in all, the skiing is fantastic for this time of year, but it will turn to crap in a hurry as soon as the dust layer surfaces, possibly in a few more days.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.