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 Peak:  Mt. Shavano
 Route:  Angel of Shavano
 Range:  Sawatch
 Posted By:  dannyg23
 Date of Info:  4/2/2012
 Date Posted:  4/3/2012
Details

My friend (thegreatcamillo) Nate and I headed up to do Shav/Tab sunday night (4/1). The road in was very drivable with the exception of a large snowdrift about 2 miles from the TH (details can be found on the TH conditions page). Right next to the drift there is a place where a 4WD vehicle can bypass that section of road and continue, we did.

The aproach was not pretty. I have personally never seen tree fall like that before. It wasn't bad at first, and Nate and I joked about how overblown the 'microburst' talk was. Eventually though, it became a real hinderance. Some sections of the forest were almost completely obliterated, with very few trees still verticle. We made it about halfway through the trees before making camp for the night.

The next morning we fought through the rest of the trees to the base of the angel. Snow conditions on the angel were not ideal. I was hoping to make this a nice training climb so I could test out snow climbing, but no such luck. Although the angel was mostly filled in it was hard and crusty. There was enough traction on the snow that after a few crampon malfunctions I decided to finish the rest of the climb in just my boots. This also made a glisade out of the question.

Upon reaching the saddle a storm rolled in and the rest of the day we delt with 20' of visability, strong winds, and heavy snow fall. Several route finding errors later we got back down to our camp and eventually the truck. New snowfall at the TH was aproximatly 4"-6" and still falling fast.



Comments or Questions
primary332
Tree Fall
4/5/2012 6:29pm
I fought through that tree fall a couple of months ago, with skis on my back and ski boots on. It was awful.


bhaydin
User
Recommend waiting
4/7/2012 4:55am
Very miserable climbing indeed. I personally recommend waiting until the forest service gets it cleaned out. They are well aware of the issue!



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