Travis- what’s up in the gores?

The town of Eagle got a foot of snow last Friday night and Vail only got a few inches out of that storm. It all seems to have gone a little south, between Eagle and Aspen got dummped on. I toured up by Fulford in the sawatch on Sunday and there was up to 18″ of new and still dumping. Sketch avy conditions up high and not enough snow in the trees yet. The Gores do look good for this time of season. I will take the sled up their this weekend to check out conditions. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

I have been getting a lot of good riding -pre opening resort riding. wish they would just keep it all closed. freeking communistic forest service and VR are trying to close access to everything good! I hear they want to start charging uphill skiers $10 per day pre-season? how can they even do that? isn’t it public land that we have a right to?

Oh yeah, i have been given the chance to demo the Phantom’s! Wow is all i have to say! more to come soon

Took a drive over to CP on Tuesday. Did a few laps lookers left on S. Diamond (Tasters?), conditions were better than I had anticipated. CP is crazy busy nowadays, check out the Powder Buzz thread :nononno:

Flatboat opened yesterday but we had a wind event last Saturday that (From what I’ve been told) ruined everything it touched. Might go have a look see for myself in between murdering a tree in the name of Christmas and cooking a bird for the wife and dogs.

I plan on scouting some of our local jams Friday but I’m thinking we may need another storm or two for them to get good. Most are 9-10K. I’ll let you know Cometogether what I find. Looking forward to showing you around our paradise this year.

Probably gonna head east again Tuesday. Maybe check out Hotdog bowl or 7 Utes. Matt (Norv on SB.com) will be joining from FC and is always looking for someone to split the gas with. Apparently his Team Obama sponsorship doesn’t cover recreation 😉

Funny how when I have loads of work old man winter pukes his guts up and as soon as I retire for the season he goes down for a nap. It’ll come.

Got 3 tours in this weekend. Not huge tours, but good ones. Stuck just below treeline on NE to NW faces.

Day 1 rode a ENE face from around 11,800′. On pit results got varied responses. I did two CT tests within 5 feet of eachother, one getting a CT24Q3 and the second a CT14Q2. So that showed me a lot of spacial variability, which is typical this part of the early season with small trees anchoring or not under the surface. There is two distinct layers around 1 foot and 2 feet down that were from surface hoar, but tougher to trigger. This was on a clearly wind loaded area approaching treeline, which is what I expected to be the touchiest. On my ECT I did not get any results until I basically put my whole weight on it. But the whole block released slowly. Overall, I felt confident opening it up a bit below treeline in the smaller avalanche paths.

Day 2 rode a NNW face from 11,400, and then a N face from 11,600. Lots of good snow on both for two good 1,200+ runs. Still a little thin for thicker trees, ended up doing a header or two getting caught on them. But fun features.

Day 3 rode a more open NE face from around 11,800. Rode very well.

I did get a great look at the slide on battleships N face. Was very impressive. Crowns started around 1-2 feet at the top, but a sympathetic slide I assume made the entire face go. Debris pile was probably 15 feet or more deep at the bottom. I assume it stepped down in layers during the avalanche. And a big swath at the bottom for the debris pile. Wish my camera was working, it was good to see.

Also noticed some of the largest hoar frost I’ve seen as well, sounds like all of colorado has that. Generally on N-E aspects at all elevations above 10,000′, and more on North faces between 10-11K, and in shade. Measured around 15mm, and will be interesting to see what it does in the next storm. Forecasted amounts around 12-18 inches for Tues-Wednesday, lets hope! Probably will be dicey with the hoar frost for a bit.

We had inversion quite a bit saturday. Was 12 degrees at 10,000 driving into the pass, and 6 degrees in town at 9,400′.

Unfortunately didn’t get to pull out the camera for pictures, you just have to believe me 🙂

Sunday 12/1/13. Prospect Gulch. Venturing out a bit more. First Tracks! Pray for snow :bananas:

Photo: bonesgetbroke

Looks like lots of activity in the Silverton area, as expected. About 17″ new. Forecast is 8-12″ saturday into sunday too.

I’m sitting at a desk :banghead:

Kendall Natural Slide.

Freezing our nuts off in Rout County! I saw -41 on Thursday :banghead: Looks like we might see the teens tomorrow, maybe get out for a tour? -14 and 20 mph at noon 30 today. May as well work.

I rode them at wolf creek on day 1. I just found the ride a little harsher than I wanted. You can feel every bump, and the flex is slightly different. Also, the Pho’s are a little lighter and the abuse should be less on them than the resort. The Phos are good for light touring, but if you want to hammer on them, they are a little too soft. I’m going to be trying out the regular Alphas this weekend, the Phos were a little light for me.

I will say they are good to learn how they ride from a day at the resort.

Im pretty sure that there are multiple threads for you fruit booters….

Lets stay on topic and talk about conditions 🙂