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Shavano New East Slopes

Trailhead Conditions: no issues, no snow. Shout out to CFI for the trail rebuild - no less than a Herculean effort, can't imagine how much toil this took. There are some pros and cons to this though as I'll outline. Snow: first half of the forest just a dusting; second half of the forest maybe 2-4 inches. No snowshoes needed at any point. Above the tree line I encountered maybe 3-6 inches with some deeper sections on some slopes. I lost the new trail around 13,500 on the way up, it's a little clearing and with more snow up there it's hard to make it out so I followed the Angel and then cut across the slope to the regular route. The Angel still doesn't have too much coverage, but the scree has the worst amount of snow: enough to cover the voids in between rocks and not enough to cover the rocks (more on this in a moment). Overall: though I felt the new reroutes were high quality and very intuitive they add a significant amount of mileage to the total trail so be forewarned. I personally really enjoyed it and I thought the switchbacks above the tree line were a huge relief in lieu of what is otherwise a lengthy abuse of your right hip flexor (extended uphill leg traverse). I originally planned on doing the combo but the snow conditions looked too dicey. The ridge to Tab is fine but the descent involves either the very icy talus or post holing unknown snow depth in between the rocks - this is a great moment to take a breath and reflect on what a leg/ankle injury here might look like and make the right choices. The return is a real slog and I highly recommend trekking poles for this peak. I had microspikes but didn't use them; blue bird day, only soul on the mountain all day, clocked 14.4m RT with 4479 vertical; a little over 7hr. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):