TRIP REPORT: LOVELAND PASS BY MOONLIGHT (short /w Good night pics!)

Snowfire, Jamie, and I tour Loveland Pass by the light of the Feb 7th/8th full moon

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT ME
All taken with my Canon PowerShot A70 at a 35mm lens equivalent and a 15 second exposure.

~2145 I arrive at the summit of Loveland Pass and survey the lack of snow for a bit while two large groups of snowboarders ski with no packs or avie gear make some laps.
~2215 Snowfire and Jamie arrive at the summit of Loveland Pass and we their car down to the pickup point.
~2235 We begin hiking up the Clear Creek West side of the pass into Atlantic Bowl via the path that normally goes to the Professor. The full moon shines brightly on the snow giving the mountains that eerily pleasant glow that your can only find on a clear winter’s night above treeline. The night surprisingly is windless and warm with nary a breeze to chill me. I clearly overdressed.
~2240 After a five-minute walk, we stop to put on are skinned skis and I decided to take a picture of the east side of the pass.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic18452.jpg
Blue Seams

Making our way straight up a steep, poorly covered section as though we were headed for the Professor, the poor conditions become apparent. The snow, extremely hard and scoured from the past 50+mph winds, causes our skins to slip. We continue on through the hardslab which rocks jutting out until a decision is made that further travel is not worth the effort.
~2315 Having skinned about ¾ to 1 mile, we break down our gear and I make a few more images before skiing down Atlantic Bowl.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic18453.jpg
Snowfire and I

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic18454.jpg
Atlantic Night

The feeling of deskinning skis by moonlight after a short tour up is amazing. One feels very alone under the moon and stars. The sensation is very rewarding and the views were vastly different in feel than an average day on the pass.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic18455.jpg
Loveland Moonscape

We skied down over such hard snow that… well lets just say that Gotamas carve an amazingly decent turn on hardpack inbounds or out. There were a few soft spots and the snow improved as we approached treeline and dropped into the “natural halfpipe.” After making the run, I felt that while the turns themselves were not worth the touring effort, the experience was one I would not give up.

Driving up the pass, we decided to make some more runs and switch off on driving duty. It ended up being three more laps through the trees with no hiking or skinning before the snowstorm started and the wind picked up. It was interesting to see the person in front of you by the sparks flying from their edges and they skied over rocks rather than by their headlamp.

~0030 We say our goodbyes and head our separate ways.

Moonlight skiing at Loveland Pass is an exciting yet peacefull experience that I highly recommend assuming the weather is good and you are familiar with the terrain. I would love to do it again.

The pics are wild.

Nice.

That first pic looks like a painting. A nice painting.

Sick and ashamed and happy (and wish I could click (or paint) that good),
d.

Very nice mang.

The 2 pics in the middle look like daylight? Because of the long exposure?

Amazing pics SC! What a trip that must have been. Anymore pics?

Nice pics! I was up there Friday night...grabbed the "good" skis out of the box by mistake, blew an edge. :(

Did you use a flash or do you have a camera with some sort of auto exposure? (Photo jong, my 35mm is a 10-15yr old cheap Chinon).

Brought the helmet cam but I'll have to run it through After Effects to see if I can bump up the light a little...right now it's all black with sound. :)

More pictures of Snowfire.

Thanks folks :)

Yea... they look like daylight because of the long exposure and the very bright full moon. You can see stars in Atlantic Night. Unfortunately, I only took 7 pictures total that night, two of them being people pictures. I would have taken more if hadn't started to snow.

For those who were asking: Exposures were manual of course based on experience plus guessing with the new digitoy. All were 15s at f/2.8 or f/4 and ISO 100 or 200 depending on the shot. I used an auto fill flash on the Snowfire and Summit shot in addition to the 15s exposure. I appologize for the noisy skies but that is what digicams do with long exposures. I also appologize for the poor writing style as the report was written at 2AM or so.

Glad you could come along, SC... too bad Farmer never called me back, he missed out on a good time!

YEah, I woke up sick as a dog on Sunday morning. It sucked big hairy balls... we drove to AB to pick up the nalgene and sock that I had left there on saturday , I did a run on Pali and one on 2nd Alley and called it quits. My stomach was not a happy camper. Did you get out with the others?

I got your message this morning, but as you can see, we are not skiing today :p . Weekdays spent skiing are few and far between, as Jamie works full time and I am taking 17 credits trying to graduate in May, plus working 3+ nights a week... Sometimes they happen, but not usually. Thanks for the call though. :)

I am counting the days until my LBF's arrive. :D :D :D

those pic's are nasty.

AB was great yesterday. the early afternoon opening of the ally capped off a great couple of days for me.

wow, stoke!

That last pic is awesome