Southern Sawatch conditions update

[Yog]

Condition shots taken from 285 5-15-10 in the afternoon. Apologies for the quality, but taken leaning out the window at 65 mph

Angel of Shavano is looking pretty ripe.

Shavano 5-15-10.jpg (42.02 KiB) Viewed 1777 times

Antero 5-15-10.jpg (27.38 KiB) Viewed 1778 times

Columbia 5-15-10.jpg (25.46 KiB) Viewed 1777 times

[Aubrey]

I climbed the Angel yesterday ... deep powder is all I can say. Made for a really exhausting climb ... but the skier I saw seemed to be loving it, even though weather wasn't so great. Today was much different. Tons of sun on Tigger. BTW, we made it up the road to the towers. It's possible to make it a bit farther up to the camping areas, but there were a few drifts to cross (icy in the a.m.; slushy in the p.m.). Though it'd only save about a quarter mile. Some snow on the road up but it's tracked ... and melting fast. Kinda' sloppy-muddy on the drive down, but nothing too bad.

[mattpayne11]

I climbed the Angel yesterday ... deep powder is all I can say. Made for a really exhausting climb ... but the skier I saw seemed to be loving it, even though weather wasn't so great. Today was much different. Tons of sun on Tigger. BTW, we made it up the road to the towers. It's possible to make it a bit farther up to the camping areas, but there were a few drifts to cross (icy in the a.m.; slushy in the p.m.). Though it'd only save about a quarter mile. Some snow on the road up but it's tracked ... and melting fast. Kinda' sloppy-muddy on the drive down, but nothing too bad.

How was the saddle between Shav and Tab?

[Aubrey]

I climbed the Angel yesterday ... deep powder is all I can say. Made for a really exhausting climb ... but the skier I saw seemed to be loving it, even though weather wasn't so great. Today was much different. Tons of sun on Tigger. BTW, we made it up the road to the towers. It's possible to make it a bit farther up to the camping areas, but there were a few drifts to cross (icy in the a.m.; slushy in the p.m.). Though it'd only save about a quarter mile. Some snow on the road up but it's tracked ... and melting fast. Kinda' sloppy-muddy on the drive down, but nothing too bad.

How was the saddle between Shav and Tab?

Wish I could tell you. As I told bjohnson, we got socked in on Shavano. Just before the summit, I could see a patch of blue skies, and I have a cool pan to prove it (hope to have a TR up tomorrow night). But once we got up there, squalls of clouds and snow blocked our view of Tabe and the saddle. And because it was so nasty, we didn't stay long. I imagine the saddle was very similar to our climb: drifts of dense, powdery snow mixed with iced-over rocks. Today was sunny and warm, so I'm sure it's changing up there rapidly.

Maybe the guy that drove the Accord to the trailhead will chime in. :D We think he went on to Tabe. Or maybe one of the three guys we saw skinning up the Angel's climber's-right arm saw something (they were coming up as we were descending, and the weather seemed to improve after noon).

[altidude]

Saturday was pretty frustrating on Shavano. Fresh snow the whole way up, with nasty winds and poor visibility. I'd say the next two weeks would be prime for the Angel, as long as there is not a weather repeat .

The drive into the Shav/Tab TH was pretty exciting Friday night with all the fresh snow. Even with 4WD I was all over 252

[RatherbeintheMtns]

I was the one in the Accord Saturday. I started wandering down the ridge to Tab a little bit, but conditions at the time were pretty bad with all the blowing snow. The ridge seemed to be well-covered in pretty loose snow. The weather got better latter in the day so I hiked some of the Colorado Trail before heading out.

[JayB]

My partner and I tried the Mt. Shavano Angel on Friday, May 14. Snowed on us nearly the whole attempt. The temperature and wind were fine. We had some difficulties finding the proper route through the trees as my GPS struggled to get correct readings. We had to resort to old fashioned compass directions to lead our way. We finally made it above treeline, but the snow was coming down so hard that it was difficult to see very far.

After making it to around 12,000 ft (guessing) and already 1:00 pm, we decided to pack it in so we wouldn't lose our path down to where I stashed my skis at treeline.

We enjoyed the experience though...

[CG_old]

Crap... this doesn't bode well for my hopes of mostly-snow-free trail running on 14ers over Memorial Day weekend. Thanks for the updates!