Kebler Funday - 2.17.2012

On Friday Jordan, Frank, Nick and I headed out to Kebler pass for a day of skiing and snowmobiling. The avy danger around here is still quite high, and although some people are starting to get after it, we are still pretty anxious about stability. And this is exactly why we decided on a ski-sled hybrid day: we didn't want to push it too much with a full day of touring, but at the same time it was too beautiful and there was too much new snow to pass up being out. And as luck would have it, snowmobiles are still really fun where its too flat to ski!

After a late start we headed up to the Anthracites and quickly were at the top of 7th bowl. Frank dropped first:


Then I dropped and was stoked to find some nice knee deep pow (Photo Nick Matisse):


Nick took up the rear:


Frank is leaving for AK tomorrow, so he needed to empty his airbag canister before the flight. Ironically, he deployed it by tripping over it at the bottom:


Then he got in some pow turns on his sled before going home to pack:


After Frank departed, we headed up above Irwin to some of our favorite sledding meadows (Photo Nick Matisse):




Nick:




and amazing views of the Elks:


Scarp Ridge:


Big avalanches everywhere (this photo was taken standing on the debris of the slide pictured):


Before heading back in we sledded west over Kebler pass. I've never been west of Kebler Pass before, and as always its was great to see somewhere new. I'd like to head farther west out next time, but the sun was setting and it was time to head back. Mount Marcellina to the west:

Fruita Mountain Biking - October 2011

This past weekend Jordan, Rachel, Grete, Emrys, Emiel, and I headed out to Fruita for one last summer hurrah before ski season (yes I know Wolf Creek was open). Fortunately, Emiel and Emrys wisely left work early and snagged the last camp spot at 18 road.

The race van makes things blurry
Photo: Emrys Hall

The rest of us were not so wise and left Boulder around 6:30. Counting our 30 minute dinner pit stop it took us 5.5 hours, we rolled in to this lovely site, and deceptively clear skies:

Night at 18 Road w/ the race van
Photo: Emrys Hall

By morning a lovely 45 degree rain was falling, no one was feeling too motivated or warm, especially Grete who had made the unfortunate decision to sleep under the stars. Somehow she was not awoken by the liquid hypothermia falling on her, fortunately Emiel woke up and was nice enough to wake her up. We eventually got rolling and by noon we were riding the Kokopelli trail network down at the Loma exit. At this point the rain had slowly to a slight drizzle, which soon ended. We rode Mary's to the Horsethief Bench Loop.

Horsethief Bench Loop, Horsethief Canyon, Colorado River

Rachel finishes up the Horsethief Bench Loop

Horsethief bench is awesome: its a combination of fast, flowly, smooth singletrack and technical sandstone ledges, blocks, drops, and rolls. It has some challenging sections that I didn't clear, but maybe could with a couple more tries, and some moves I doubt I'll ever make. Given more time I would definitely do a couple laps here.

Emiel, no doubt discussing how awesome my bike is

Rachel cruises along Mary's towards Steve's

We then continued along Mary's to Steve's Loop via Steve's cutoff. Steve's is similar to most of the Fruita riding we did: rolling and awesome. It was less technical than Horsethief, but had some mindboggling sections next to enormous cliffs. You would never fall of them, but they still gave me some butterflys. Nothing like riding five feet from a 400 foot cliff with the Colorado river below you! Another loop I wouldn't miss. Unfortunately, Steve's loop was when our bikes began to fail. My chain was the first casualty, to be followed later on in the day by Grete and Emiel's bikes.

Steve's Loop

Grete on Steve's Loop

After Steve's we started up Troy Built with the plan of riding it to Mack Ridge. I was having a great time racing Emiel up the climb when my cell phone informed me that Grete's derailleur had exploded behind us. Fortunately it was only her derailleur hanger, but of course no spare! We burned a fair amount of time failing to turn her bike into a single speed. At this point we realized that our plans were derailed and that we needed to head back and hopefully find Grete a new hanger in Fruita ASAP.

The straw that broke the camels back

o well....

After hearing rave reviews those of us with functioning bikes headed for Moore Fun on the way back. I do not like this trail. Its just not possible to ride bikes up 3 foot rock blocks and around opposing 90 degree turns. Its one of those trails that just destroys bikes: one second your disc brake rotor is smashing into a rock, the next second its your crankset loosing a couple teeth, then its your stanchion tube grinding through a large boulder. Its one of those trails I would have probably enjoyed much more a few years ago when I was all about destroying my bike. Remembering that we were after all trying to get Grete to Fruita before the bike shops close, I gave up on this silliness after about 20 minutes and turned around to ride the frontage road back. Apparently the rest of Moore Fun was similiar, we were back at the bike shop in Fruita before the rest of the crew had even made it back to the car (minus one of Emiel's pedals). I would highly recommend Mary's, Steve's, and Horsethief; Moore Fun only if you are REALLY good and enjoy bike destruction.

The Bookcliffs

More scenery

The second day we woke up at 18 Road, where we would spend the day riding, to clear skies and perfect temps. 

French Toast and our campsite at 18 Road

We started out the morning with a lap on Joe's Ridge, climbed back up the road, rode Kessel all the way down, rode Prime Cut back up, and finished off with a short climb up Frontside followed by a descent down the upper half of Zippity Do Dah. I spent one day at 18 Road back in high school, but forgot just how fun it is. All the trails provides fast and smooth singletrack, Joe's and Zippity combine this with exciting descents down some rather skinny ridges, Kessel with a couple miles of perfectly banked corners. Prime Cut provides a great reascent route. The only trail that I would not recommend is upper Kessel, its not bad, its just that everything else is much better. Joe's Ridge to Kessel incorporates the best parts of Kessel. It reminds me of skiing at a ski area: the climbs are effortless, and are followed by a couple minutes of exhilarating and fast descents. Nothing here is very technical, but riding down the ridges is fun enough that a group of mixed ability can have a good time. I would recommend this area to almost anyone.

Emiel legs are a bit tired - Top of Zippity Do Dah

Emiel pumps the rolls of Joes Ridge

Jordan braves the steeps of Zippity Do Dah

Grete at the top of Joes Ridge

Emiel and Emrys nearing the bottom of Joes Ridge

Jordan and Rachel heading up Western Zippity to Zippity Do Dah

Serengeti or Fruita? - Western Zippity

Jordan rounds an exciting corner on Zippity Do Dah

Emiel and more awesomeness - Zippity Do Dah

Zippity Do Dah

The afternoon was almost a repeat of the morning: up the road, down Joe's Ridge, down lower Kessel, upper Western Zippity, all the way down Zippity and back up to the campsite. We had planned on riding Chutes and Ladders (which I have ridden before and remember being pretty awesome), but we ran out of time. O well, next time!

The Crew + Monster Bike

If you haven't ridden in Fruita, ride it! 18 road isn't technical or tiring, but its fun, fast, and exhilarating. The Kokopelli area is a great combination of precipitous views, fast singletrack, and technical sandstone. I'd love to spend more time riding the rest of the trails at both areas. 

Dragonstail Couloir Ski - 5.16.2010

Rachel Ertz, Jordan Scheremeta, Ben Kugel, Nick Allen, Ethan Vimont, and I set out to ski Dragonstail Couloir three days after a large upslope hit the Front Range back in mid May of 2010. This is one of the top 5 best spring descents I've ever done, so as you can imagine I've been wanting to put it up here for a while. But I've kept dragging my feet about it, I think the reason for this is because looking back on it I'm still not sure if we should have passed on it for another day.

The route

Like I said above, on the 13th a large upslope pounded the Front Range of Colorado. The eastern side of Rocky Mountain National Park is favored for high snowfall totals in these events as much as anywhere. On the 14th Erik Mehus, Jordan Scheremeta, and I skied a mellow day on Meadow Mountain bowl on the southeastern corner of the park. That day I observed generally good stability with incredibly fast snow consolidation which I attributed to the warm new snow temperatures as well air temperature and height of the sun in the sky. With a sunny day on the 15th I thought that the south facing Dragonstail would have essentially consolidated or at least developed a melt freeze crust by the 16th.

Starting at the Bear Lake parking lot we quickly reached timberline following the trail that leads to Flat Top through the woods. At timber line we were greeting with amazing views on Rocky Mountain National Park plastered in new snow. The clear spring air of the bluebird day allowed us to see much farther than normal, and I spent most of the skin drooling over amazing lines in every direction. To the south, the massive summit block of Longs Peak was framed in thin, wispy clouds, and its north face was covered in snow. Across the Tyndall Gorge, the east and north faces of Hallet looked incredible.

The Keyboard of the Winds, Pagoda & Chiefs Head

Rachel, Nick, Ben & Longs Peak

Mount Ypsilon

Hallett Peak

Longs Peak

The skin up the east ridge of Flat Top is easy and went incredibly fast, however, with every step higher the winds got stronger and stronger. Ethan and I reached the entrance to Dragonstail shortly after 10:00 and the rest of the group joined us by a little after 10:15. By the time we switched from uphill to downhill mode, selected an entrance, and got ready to drop in it was 10:45.

In the high winds it felt really cold and without dropping into coulior itself we could not get an accurate feel for the snow stability as we could only reach a drifted pocket at the edge of the entrance without fully committing ourselves. I mentally reviewed my observations from a few days before on Meadow Mountain, the aspect and elevation we would be skiing, the weather the previous two days, and decided based that the couloir would be stable. One of my main concerns was a very slight graupel layer that preceded the storm that I had observed on Meadow Mountain. However, Meadow Mountain is about 1000 vertical feet lower than Dragonstail and felt that the graupel had probably not fallen at this elevation.

Looking down the couloir

I then entered the couloir and put in a gentle ski cut across it. I immediately realized that it was WAY hotter in the couloir than we had anticipated, I had been fooled by the wind. This is something that I will always remember to think of from now on. Although the snow itself had not yet become unstable due to liquid water I was very concerned about one of the enormous cornices above falling, or a wet slide lower in the couloir. Further, there was no sign of the melt freeze crust we had been planning on. The snow certainly wasn't 10% water content pow, but it had a long way to go before becoming Névé. I felt extremely uncomfortable sitting under those huge cornices, and did not feel it was safe to take the time to dig a full pit. However, my quick hand and pole pits showed no signs of instability at the bottom of the new snow.

It was time to move FAST. I either needed to figure out if I was going to be able to climb back out or we needed to start down immediately. I relayed my thoughts to the rest of the group waiting at the entrance. Jordan, Ethan, and Ben decided they felt it was safe to ski while Rachel and Nick called it off. I have no doubt in my mind that Rachel and Nick made the right decision by saving a great line for another day.

I skied first and every turn released a flood of sloughing snow. There were no slab releases, but the volume of flowing snow was enormous and could have easily knocked any of us off our feet and carried us. We worked our way down from safe spot to safe spot each time letting our slough pass us. Despite this, the skiing was great: the line sustains its pitch forever and the rock walls on the side of the couloir are amazing.

Whats that little dot down there?

After the top 500' vertical feet the pitch let off a little and the couloir opened up with more safe zones. At this point the sloughing reaching more manageable levels and the skiing became much more relaxed and safe.

Its Ethan!

As we worked our way down we continued to see the telltale signs of the warm spring day including substantial releases of loose snow from hanging snow fields far up on the couloir walls.

Snow releasing off warm rock

Ethan

Ethan lays it over

Mike

Whats so awesome about this line is it just doesn't stop and it stays steep until the apron.

Ben

In the apron we passed a slide, which we later found out was from earlier that morning, that had traveled about 400 vertical feet and consisted solely of storm snow. I think that this slid because of the weakness associated with the graupel that fell at lower elevations. Regardless this was a sign of instability.

Ben

Ethan and Dream Lake, Frozen Elk and Dragonstail behind

At the bottom of the apron, returning to the trailhead involves the easy process of following the summer trail across several lakes down the Tyndall gorge back to Bear Lake.

The west and east entrances to Dragonstail

Longs, Keyboard of the Winds & Pagoda

Looking back on the day, obviously the safest decision would have just been to turn around and wait a couple more days. I learned a valuable lesson about not letting the winds fool me about the air temperature. Although I think the odds of triggering a slab that day were very slim, the consequences of if such an event had happened still worry me. Also, like I mentioned before I was also quite off with my forecast of the snow metamorphism. I think the reason for this is that I did not take into account, that even with the warm spring temps and the southern aspect, how long it would take 30 inches of snow to settle. I'm still not sure why no freeze crust developed on a relatively low south facing aspect in mid may. Perhaps the previous day was more cloudy than forecast or air temperatures just never got that high?? This is one of those days that we should have gone and skied an area without terrain traps where triggering a slab or a large slough in the storm snow would have been manageable.

Snow stability and decision making analysis aside, this is a GREAT line that I would highly recommend. It is long, steep(consistently over 50 degrees at the top), aesthetic, and has ridiculously easy access. I have yet to ski anything else that has the same vertical payoff on the way down for every step taken on the way up, this is a classic line.