Herman Gulch conditions

[AlexeyD]

Continuing to look at various options for this weekend. Anyone been up Herman Gulch lately? How are snow conditions on Pettingel/Citadel?

[Dave B]

Although I didn't set foot in Herman Gulch, I got a great view of Citadel and Pettingell from a ski of Bard/Engelman on Wednesday.

There is a ton of snow up there. Seriously, snotel measurements are not quite capturing the status of snow in the alpine right now since they're all below tree line. Anyways, north facing cooler on Citadel looked great and Pettingell east face looked continuous. Get after it!

I've got a picture of the two peaks that I can put up later today when I get home.

[AlexeyD]

I've got a picture of the two peaks that I can put up later today when I get home.

Would love to see them, thanks!

[Dave B]

Here ya go.

Looks like some wet slide debris on Citadel, which is little surprise given the recent conditions.

[odoyle81]

Yep, there was wet slide activity everywhere up there. There is lots of snow, but it has been warm and we were skiing mashed potatoes on Pettingell on Sunday. Even triggered a little wet slide of our own. We were able to ski down patches and only had to hike the last two miles of trail.

wet slides:


view from the top of Pettingell:


ski:

[GarrettA]

I was up on the Citadel on sunday, Got to it early enough, parts of the bowl were stable and I had good run down mashed potatoes.

[PaliKona]

How far up the trail does the significant snow start?

[odoyle81]

First two miles are a mix of dry, wet & muddy, and small patches of snow. After that we left the gulch around 11,500 at which point the snow is pretty continuous. Here is a shot of the gulch (you can see I70 in the distance).