Sunday, December 11, 2011

Hidden Valley Ski - 12.10.2011

Having just gotten back from San Francisco yesterday I thought I'd get out for a day on the front range before heading back to CB. Because all of the recent storms have been upslopes, skiing around the front range is limited to areas that are favored by these upslopes. Assuming that Berthoud would be busy, we decided to check out Hidden Valley. 

Unfortunately it was quite busy too: 

This bowl looks fun, too bad its probably filled with windslab:

Longs Peak:

A very cool hole to the north of us"

The snow at and above treeline was some of the firmest wind crust I have ever skied, Rachel:


Below treeline the snow was actually really nice, and the snowpack was pretty deep all things considered (3 feet). Matt: 

Matt and Rachel worked on their synchronized skiing:
Then we dropped into the next shot to soon, and spent the next 30 minutes sampling some of this: 
Overall, I was pretty impressed with the depth of the snowpack in RMNP, especially below treeline. The windslab above treeline is killer though (I guess this is the front range after all). It was fun to go somewhere we haven't skied much, but I doubt I will be coming back here soon: the terrain is mellow and everything above treeline just gets hit so hard by the wind.

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