6/8/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 6/11/2011, By: ilium Info: An absolutely ideal climb. I used my snowshoes all the way to and from 12,700‘. Then it was crampons. There is some post-holing going on up there, so you may use somebody else‘s footprints, but expect to sink farther. The snow is rotting out. The final culoir to the summit is in pretty good condition and totally snow-filled. Axe is necessary. After glissading thousands of feet, the descent only took an hour! |
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6/2/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 6/6/2011, By: E-dorvs Info: Road is open to "lower" summer trailhead (at the restrooms). Still a lot of snow above that, although the Ouray district road and bridge mentioned they were starting on the "upper" trailhead soon (not entirely confident in that assessment after being up there). The route is 100% snow from the parking lot to at least Lavender Col. We were up in the area just bumming around skiing so we didn‘t get a good look above Lavender Col. The route up to the Col is 100% and very wide. PM if you would like some pictures from the upper basin looking up the route. |
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6/1/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 6/3/2011, By: Beachrodney Info: Skied Sneffels on june 1, upper trail plowed to just about the summer TH, had a good overnight freeze and the skiing was great around 11am. There is a little bit of snirt here and there but not too bad. Plan on hitting it again or something else in the basin june 6 or 7 |
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5/29/2011 Route: Blaine Basin approach, lower snake Posted On: 5/30/2011, By: Gueza Info: Did the approach from blaine basin to the base of the Snake couloir. The first 2 miles is dry, last mile and a half to the basin was a bush-wacking, route finding slush fest. To steep for skinning or snowshoes on the two headwalls, many waste deep post-holes over hidden dead fall and on the slope were made. Not sure if there is a well established trail there (we certainly did not find it). The snake has plenty of snow in it, however it is still a wintery snow pack up there and is no where even close to isothermal. We did not get the overnight freeze we were looking for and on top of that there are numerous wet layers inside of the snowpack. On our way out, we saw the aftermath a monster wet slab avalanche on an identical aspect to lower snake that wasn‘t their when we came in. Looked like it ripped near to the ground, taking most of the snowpack with it. The snake should be ski-able into mid June. I would not recommend the blaine basin approach however. |
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5/28/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 5/31/2011, By: Wentzl Info: Yankee Boy road is open to the pit toilet. Great snowshoe/skiing conditions on Saturday. Shallow wet slab slides all over the place, but nothing running deep. Standard route packed out with steps. I ascended on the rocks from Lavender Col and dropped into the gully for the descent and brought about 3 inches of the snowpack with me and watched it run into Blaine Basin. Pretty exciting. |
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5/6/2011 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 5/10/2011, By: Wyoming Bob Info: Attempted Sneffels on May 6th. Conditions were . . . road closure is 3.5 miles from the hard road out of Ouray. (I think this gives about a 7 miles one way distance for the climb) Road is snow covered all the way from the closure but for perhaps 100 yards near the bottom. There is a dozer parked at the closure but the road being open to the Camp Bird was a pipe dream. Maybe later . . . The snow gets deep after the cut out section of the shelf road, talking 3 to 6 feet. We had night frozen snow for the approach through the 2WD Th and through the 4WD TH with a 5 a.m. start. The snow went to $#!) for us about 1/2 mile beyond the upper TH. The Lavender Col was loosening and the upper arm was a mire of softening snow. Our alpine start was late, too late for our chosen route to have any hope of nice steps, instead we "kicked" those soft compacted "steps" you hope hold in warming conditions. We turned the climb at the top of the left arm of the Col, just short of the summit, due to lack of ability to get a belay in to make the final sloping rock climb (covered with snow) So close but . . . no cigar. Many wet sloughs in evidence in valley so we stayed low on the outbound leg, on snow shoes all the way out. Flotation was excellent with shoes, no fun without. |
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7/31/1997 Route: South Slopes Posted On: 8/2/2021, By: MartaG Info: Summitted Saturday July 31. Thunderstorms on the Western Slope and a cold night turned into some snow and frost on the South Slopes route over the weekend. Some of rocks were slick on the first scree slope and small hard snow patches were present into Lavender Col. The snow had mostly loosened up by the time we descended, but it was a good reminder to be prepared for any type of weather in Colorado at any time. |
