Avalanche/Capitol lakes conditions

[CoHi591]

Anyone been up the Avalanche Creek trail to Avalanche lake lately? I was hoping to try to go backpacking in the area soon and have no idea how much snow may or may not be there. If anyone's been up to Capitol Lake or any of the surrounding passes I'd love those conditions too. Thanks!

[pcsongei]

Jumping in on this thread so as not to start another one...

I am planning a two night backpacking loop in the Avalanche Creek/Avalanche Lake area mid-July and wanted to see if anyone had info about the camp spots along Avalanche Creek? I am pretty sure there will be campsites along the creek but Google searches for "avalanche creek camping" turn up all kinds of results in several states

I am also pretty confident in the camping at Avalanche Lake, but if anyone has firsthand experience I'd love to hear it!

Here's the loop we're doing - campsites marked in blue, going counter-clockwise. Night 1 is approximate location, but would prefer to camp close-ish to Hell Roaring Creek/trail to keep all three days of hiking reasonable

[dwoodward13]

Anyone been up the Avalanche Creek trail to Avalanche lake lately? I was hoping to try to go backpacking in the area soon and have no idea how much snow may or may not be there. If anyone's been up to Capitol Lake or any of the surrounding passes I'd love those conditions too. Thanks!

Best bet is to look up SNOTEL sites close to the area you are interested in. Closest one is on the Crystal side of the drainage, but shows 43 inches of snow on the ground at 9000 ft. Its gonna be a while if you want 'summer' backpacking.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/dat ... active-map

[SkaredShtles]

There's bound to be a boatload of snow. If you're backpacking, take skis.

Good visual of the general snowpack conditions in the area: https://aspen.roundshot.com/snowmass/#/

[Chicago Transplant]

Your post says Mid-July is when you are planning this loop? That will change things relative to conditions, some snow on the passes could be expected and maybe Avalanche Lake. Otherwise, I think you will be generally good that time of year. I recommend checking back on conditions reports/trip reports as this is a bit early in the year for most people. I did Haystack (12er above Capitol Creek north of Daly) Mid-July in 2019, which was a very heavy snow year. I should have some pictures from the summit that would show conditions on the passes. I did have some snowfields that year near treeline but the valley trails were melted out if I remember correctly.

Your proposed camps do not require advanced permits (but Capitol Lake does), just a self-registration at the trailhead. Bear canisters are required in Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.

Logistics aside, I highly recommend taking a side trip up the unnamed 12er at the pass between Avalanche and Capitol Lakes, you get front row seats for Capitol's very dramatic north face!

[pcsongei]

Yeah, sorry for the confusion, didn't want to create more threads about the same topic, but maybe I should have

I am going in July, not really too worried or concerned about snow, although I expect we'll see some. I was mostly looking for any firsthand experience or info regarding camp sites along Avalanche Creek. I'm sure there are spots along the creek, just trying to get a better idea of where we should expect to find good established sites so we can plan out our daily mileage

[9patrickmurphy]

Here's a link to a CalTopo map with a DEM shading layer for finding level ground, courtesy of HikerGuy: https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=39.1431 ... 000-0000FF.

If you want to put this into any existing CalTopo map, just make a DEM shading layer with the rule "s0-8 FF0000-0000FF".