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I‘ll post full trip reports later when i have more time, but i thought a few pictures would be helpful to anyone looking to go to this area soon. We were in Yankee Boy Basin skiing and snowboarding various routes from 5/7/09-5/11/09. Solar aspects we well baked and excellent spring snow, with the exception of the couloir above the Lavender Col on Sneffels, which was extremely choppy due to somebody skiing it while it was still wet, sticky, unconsolidated snow. North facing slopes still had not fully baked out, and we were turned back on two different routes due to questionable snow. North facing should be much better by this weekend.
the snow in the valleys was extremely dirty and essentially un-skiable unless it was relatively high-angle slopes
the chutes on the north face of Stony Mtn looked fantastic
the snow didn‘t freeze on saturday night, so we had to turn back on our attempt of this couloir separating Governors Basin and Sidney Basin
topping out on Sneffels
The south face of Sneffels
Gilpen Peak was calling us all week
Gilpen didn‘t want us to climb it and started hurling rocks at us when we were about halfway up the couloir at 8:30, so we had to turn back and ski down from the midpoint.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
I recognize that dog! We arrived at the bathroom in Yankee Boy on Saturday as you guys were leaving for Sneffels. Gave either you or your buddy a beer later on. We were gawking at that cross couloir on the way out. Got any more beta? How far up did you go?
that was me that was lucky enough to get a beer, thanks! The snow didn‘t freeze that night, so we ended up hiking up the low angle stuff hoping that as we got higher we would find frozen snow. As soon as we hit the first somewhat steep section (still about 200-300‘ below the entrance of the couloir), we heard a small ”whoomp” as the top few inches of snow settled and immediately high-tailed it back to the car. So no luck on the cross couloir, i guess that one will just have to go on my lifetime to-do list
There was another party that climbed it the same day as us without using crampons or ice axes, so i guess it can be done, but i wouldn‘t have felt safe without them as the pitch approaches 45 degrees.
Regarding avy danger: There was relatively new snow when we were there. The new snow on the lavender col route hadn‘t slid out and hadn‘t baked down yet, so it got sloppy and had moderate danger later in the day, but the birthday chutes had slid previously and were quite solid and safe. Avy danger may have changed significantly since then, so i can‘t give an accurate opinion on that...if it freezes solid overnight, it probably is fairly low danger.
I updated the Trailhead Status page and meant to include the information in this as well, but i spaced it... the road is clear to about 11,200‘, here's what i wrote on the other page...
2wd cars can make it 6.8 miles up the road to the Yankee Boy Basin sign, beyond that high clearance and 4wd (preferably low gear) are necessary. The road is snowed in at the outhouse 7.7 miles up the road. When we arrived on 5/6/09, the road was in far better shape than when we left on 5/11/09 because the road was rapidly eroding due to snowmelt. We were driving a stock Tacoma and occasionally scraped lightly when crossing the waterbars.
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