Dry Gulch is still snow covered but punchy in spots due to warm temps this week. Thursday night was a weak freeze. Its melting out fast. There was a large wet silde off the north wall/south-facing aspect of the gulch recently around 11,000ish. The snowpack in this basin is top-heavy right now in sun-exposed areas with some heavy melt-freeze crust. We experienced several "whumpfs" on the south facing slopes near tree-line when exiting the gulch/travelling up towards the high cirque. Once in the high cirque snow pack was frozen and stable. Cornices all around this area are falling or close to it.
There is still plenty of snow to ski and good coverage to summits on both Hagar SE and Citadel SW.
We did not want to descend this way as the day warmed for safety so we traveled the ridge over Golden Bear Peak and descended Loveland ski slopes on snow cat tracks. Without the tracks this would have been a swim at 11:30am and I imagine Dry Gulch would have been an abysmal and possibly dangerous place to be.
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