April Alpine Adventure

We're skiing powder in April! Join us as we skin, scramble, boot, and tumble down a local backcountry chute.
It's winter again in Summit County. We just got, I think, 8-12 inches of snow last night, in the middle of April. We were in a very nice spring cycle, so the snow pack below us right now is pretty stable. Plan was to have a fun spring tour, we were going to call it, I think, the "Sunscreen Special" or something like that. But as you can see, it's full on winter again here in Summit County. So we're looking for some pow skiing today. We are about, I don't know, 200 yards in the trail head now. The snow feels super light, super fluffy, and it's a nice pow layer on top of some locked up melt free cycle, spring snow. So we have the potential to have a really good ski day today. This is actually my favorite time to ski around here in Colorado, just because it is a little bit safer. So when you get a nice dump like this, it can make for a really good ski day. So we're going to go up and poke around a little bit. There's a number of different aspects up here that we can check out. So we have sort of a rough plan for the day, but we're going to try to find some steep and deep snow.
These boots are not as good on the up as the hoagies were. They're a little stiff, not great, not a lot of range of motion. The spot we're at today is a fairly popular spot. So one of the nice things about going to a popular spot when there's new snow is that you don't have to set the skiing track yourself. A lot of locals do come here. We're here on a weekday. So we've only seen three people, but it is always a little bit nice when you don't have to break your own trail, just because can be a little more work on the way up, but you're guaranteed fresh tracks if you break the trail. Hit the skin tracks and we'll follow it 90% of the time, unless it's under some serious avvy terrain or crosses the skiable line that we want to ski. We're basically going to follow this up here, up the zipper, and then up to the ridge, gain that ridge and then try to ski off the backside. Snow feels great so far. So it's liked, for sure.
It's that time of year when I'm never quite sure how to dress. I always get it wrong.
We're halfway up right now. We just gained the halfway point ridge, I would say. It's a little warmer than we thought it was going to be, I think we're all sweating a little bit on the skin track. But other than that beautiful day, I mean, it was forecasted to be snowy pretty much all day, but we're getting some sun. So if the clouds stay away and we can time this liner, I think this could be pretty sweet. Today where the weather's sort of going in and out, we do have to keep our eye on it just because it can change conditions a little bit. Between sun and clouds, there's a fair amount that can change, even within an hour, within a half an hour it changes really quickly up here. I think we're probably around 12.5, maybe 13 right now. So in the spring, it's really not something you have to worry about as much until it gets later in the spring, and you have to worry about lightning. Another bluebird spring day at 12,000 feet. Holy shit. We are getting to the top right now. Skin track was fairly straight forward.
However, the weather seems to have changed a lot for now. Definitely skinning up an active snowfall and clouds are rolling in, so visibility is decreasing. So hopefully we can see our line a little bit. The line we intend to ski is just over this Ridge, the...
It's a nice game. I mean, it's fricking beautiful up here and we... How long did that take us? An hour plus. Yeah, that was nuts. So we're going to transition and hopefully find some fun pow to slay. So we just did a bunch of scrambling around here trying to figure out what line we're going to ski. We had this option as well as an option on the other side of the ridge. There are three of us today and this is a bit wider, so I think this is going to be our call. Looking down into it, it looks pretty sweet. I mean, it still looks soft and it's a super aesthetic run. So I think this is going to be a pretty fun one. So I think James is going to take off, whenever he's ready. Get it, buddy.
Yeah dude, look at all that slush!
He's good.
Grantee signing.
Turns look way better down there, damn! Oh yeah. Bottom looks sick. Yeah, buddy! Fuck yeah dude. Oh, he's a ripping it. That was a nice long one.
There's definitely a thin layer of pow on top of what we know. The bottom is good.
Good, I am dropping momentarily. All right, dropping, cannot see fucking anything. I might do a quick one just to get a sense of the snow.
All good, super sloughy.
Did you get caught in the slough?
Yes, my side has a ton of snow, I'm sloughing it.
Oh my god. That was a little scary.

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Yes, love it, gettin some of that late white goodness. Jelly! 🤘🏻

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Need the glasses please and ty

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Coming soon!