Biersta.....errr Snowmass Mountain. Meet the crew:
Whole lot of sexy going on there. Left to right - Dan, Mik, Jesu...I mean Adam, Nick, Chad.
This bad boy was chilling in the parking lot:
After seeing that van, we had five jealous guys hitting the trail towards Snowmass Lake to make camp. Heading towards the logjam (lol) everything was very lush and green, and the rivers and waterfalls were raging. We started hiking out around 11am on Saturday.
Dan with the classic smirk
Shortly before the logjam (lol)
---Note---
A certain song was stuck in my mind for this entire trip. Mik joined in here and there with some lyrics. During the approach, the summit, on the summit, glissading down, approach out, drive home...this was randomly tossed out.
Probably best to watch that a few times and get it good and stuck in your head to get the full flavor of this report.
Adam's favorite section, he loved saying this word. The logjam (lol)
On the approach in a lot of the logs were moving around and very slippery. So slippery I fell in up to my waist.
Me recovering from my spill:
We encountered a few guys canoeing around in the river, we waved hello:
I think one of their names was Burt, I didn't catch the rest. Nice fellas. We all made it across relatively unscathed and continued our leisurely pace towards Snowmass Lake. Roughly a mile (give or take a lot) after the logjam (lol) we started to encounter pretty heavy snow on the trail. Dan and Mik stuck on their skis, and the other three of us brokeasses put on our snowshoes.
Conditions after the logjam (lol) to Snowmass Lake:
The last couple miles of the approach sucked pretty hard, especially for me since I was frozen from the waist down after my logjam (lol) mishap. It started to snow, the snow was mushy and we were slipping and sliding even with snowshoes, and we were tired...and we all swore we could hear a pig squealing, which was very odd. Weird. Just ready to be in a tent at this point. We finally hit our campsite at the lake, strolled in around 5:30. We were all in awe at the view. When we first got in it was pretty cloudy, then the sun came out shortly thereafter and offered up a great view of Snowmass Mountain.
Mik stunk so he took a bath
After:
We warmed up some food, had some beer, and kicked back for a bit and headed to bed early for our 2am wake up call.
2am came fast and we got our breakfast and Dan took a picture of the lake with just light from the moon:
The full moon was great, we hardly used our headlamps at all. We left camp right at 3am and crossed the initial stream, which had very wet logs. So wet, I got down on all 4's and army crawled across not wanting to take any chances of falling in (again) and ruining my summit bid. The hike around the lake went by with minimal postholing, and actually none of us ever put on our snowshoes the entire day. Even when we got back to the lake around 9am on the return it hadn't warmed enough to require any flotation. Your mileage may vary.
We donned crampons about half way up the first gully right past the lake and made slow, methodical progress all the way to the base of Snowmass Mountain to gain the ridge. We took a few breaks, took a bunch of pictures, and enjoyed the hike up.
The snow was great heading up. Super firm, getting solid purchase with the 'poons. Also, a few of us heard a pig squealing again as the alpenglow started to hit and it freaked us out. There was some debate as to how we were going to gain the summit ridge. As we got closer the route became more clear to us. How we gained the ridge and summitted is best seen in this vid:
There were a couple sketchy (imo) snow traverses that are normally solid climbing rock in the summers that had not melted out yet. A couple guys strolled right across, but me being a big wuss really took my time to kick steps and be as careful as I could.
View down one of the aforementioned sections:
The snow was bulletproof as well, which only made me more of a wuss not knowing if I could arrest it. We all made it safely across these traverses and onto the ridge proper. There were several gnarly cornices that we had to be mindful of, they can be seen in the above video. We stayed as close to the rocks as we could, or on them.
We all made it safely onto the summit at 7:30, exactly 4.5 hours from camp at a leisurely pace. Some summit shots:
Us lame non-skiers decided to bail out fast, as we did not want the sun to beat on the cornices any more than we could help. Dan and Mik stayed on the summit for quite a bit to let the sun heat up the snow. They started boiling some food and kicking back. Chad, Adam, and I, all safely recrossed the cornices and the sketchy snow fields and caught huge glissades all the way down to the lake. As we were coming down I heard more squealing. Loud this time.
Video of the descent off the summit ridge:
We made it across the lake back to camp fairly quick since there was no postholing. We stayed pretty close to the shore. At this point, one of the guys from the canoe came running past us looking frantic, holding a bow. I snapped a quick picture:
Squealing stopped after this, guy must have put down the feral hog. We had our celebratory beers and enjoyed watching Dan and Mik ski from our perches in camp.
We got back to camp shortly before 10, so between 2 and 2.5 hours to get from the summit back to camp for the glissaders. We ate some food, drank our beer, and packed up our packs. Dan and Mik came in about this time and said they had a hell of a time skiing. Some pics of their ski:
"And then Dan and Mik fist-bumped, and Mik faces Snowmass and says BOOM"
Mik and Dan wanted more and went up a couloir between Hagerman and Snowmass Peak in the 55-60 degree range and rocked the hell out of that as well:
Post ski shots:
The glissaders started out first on the endless approach back out to the car, left camp around 11:30. We would hammer for an hour, then take a break, hammer for another hour, take another break. The logjam (lol) was easier coming back back out. It was drier and the logs were not moving around like they were the previous day, not sure why. We finally got back to the car a little before 4, where I had a Mountain Dew stashed and waiting and boy was that delicious.
The drive over Independence Pass was very scenic, everything was lush heading up. Once on the top of the pass Adam was begging to be let out to take a photo on the bench at the gaper lot. He said he's working on a calendar or something:
We took off for Quincy's in Leadville where Dan and Mik met us up for some delicious steaks, wine, beer, and strawberry daiquiris.
We were in heaven at Quincy's chowing down on our steaks, potatoes, etc.
Overall it was a pretty badass trip. Great conditions, fun mountain, bomber crew.
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