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 Peak:  Maroon Peak
 Route:  Y couloir, SW couloir
 Range:  Elk
 Posted By:  SnowAlien
 Date of Info:  6/2/2019
 Date Posted:  6/2/2019
Details

Incredible amount of snow. We considered skiing Y couloir, Bell Cord or SW couloir. Today was a very warm day with marginal freeze and Y couloir already has a lot of debris and a big runnel. Calf to knee deep boot pack in transitional snowpack. Couldn't see Bell Cord, but conditions are probably very similar. Like North Maroon, the mountain is shedding snow, so wet slides and waterfalls are frequent. After climbing Y, merged with a standard route on South Maroon, although snow makes route finding quite difficult, and we ended up climbing something that felt significantly harder than our general recollection of the standard route. The ridge to the summit is a giant continuous cornice that seemed to be ready to peel off in a couple places. We made sure to choose our footing wisely. Went a bit down a summit ridge on the other side to check out potential descent, similar story - big cornices, a giant, bus size cornice on the summit itself. Due to sheer amount of snow, ascent from Bell Cord would appear to be problematic given current conditions. My 4th summit of Maroon, and conditions on the upper mountain currently appear to be more difficult than during our calendar winter mid-March ascent 2 years ago. Skied SW couloir into Fravert basin, which has transitioned to corn with a big runnel forming near the bottom (somewhat still avoidable). Overall a grand adventure under current conditions.


#1#2#3#4#5#6#7#8#9


Comments or Questions
SchralpTheGnar
User
nice work!
6/3/2019 4:19pm
How did you get back from Fravert Basin?


dweiss2
User
Snow coverage
6/4/2019 10:17am
Enough snow to ski the east slopes off the south ridge standard route? I€„¢d like to ski it if I can, but not a big fan of the rockfall hazard in the couloirs of the bells. Did you experience much rockfall in the Y?


SnowAlien
User
Escape route
6/4/2019 5:40pm
Shralp, we found an option on Gaia and it went! 👪 I'll post a TR soon

Dweiss2 - lots of snow, great coverage and lots of rockfall and snowfall from the cliffs above. Those runnels have formed quickly!



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