Berthoud

[Ireallyliketoski2]

Highly variable conditions continue to be the rule up there, skied 4 runs on powder, hardpack, wind crust, sun crust, death crust, wind slab, soft slab, and bare rock. In some places the snowpack has lost all of it's strength and you just sink right to the bottom. Generally you find a 1' top layer of decent powder, then about 2-3' of a frozen layer from that big warmup about 3 weeks ago, and then facet growth at the very bottom layer. To say that the snowpack is losing strength is a gross understatement. By far the best snow can be found at XXXXXX XXXXX. On a positive note we did get to do some practice searches with the beacons, which is always a good thing. I think I spotted iskibc's orange pants and jacket skinning up the east side on Saturday.

[hev]

you might have seen my ass bootpacking up....conditions were definately variable.

[iskibc]

yeah, that was me. It's amazing what a few days of warm weather and high winds can do to the conditions. We skinned up Jones Pass in the morning and basically skated back down to the car. It was much better the last week of October than it was Saturday. The run we skied from the summit of JP was death crust all the way to treeline. Below treeline was a treat with knee deep pow.

[Pinner]

Glad to hear XXXXXX XXXXX was so good.

And WOW! huge surprise about a rotten mid-December snowpack. That NEVER happens...

[board]

the snow was still KILLER at Buffalo Pass !


" FUCK YEA-AH " as sung by Tenacious D

[Ireallyliketoski2]

Originally posted by board
the snow was still KILLER at Buffalo Pass !


" FUCK YEA-AH " as sung by Tenacious D

hey board, were you up at buffalo pass all weekend or did you day trip it? How long of drive is it up there usually?

iskibc, I thought I recognized you from your pictures on this site, those pants will come in handy if you ever need to get spotted by a helicopter, hopefully you never will though.

edited for safety

[iskibc]

Originally posted by board
the snow was still KILLER at Buffalo Pass !


" FUCK YEA-AH " as sung by Tenacious D

lucky bastid! Who's sleds did you take up?

[xboat]

yeah, more buff pass info please.

[board]

The trip took a little over 3.5 hours towing the sleds. Iskibc the group was Erik,Country, Wood or all those guy's from Loveland pass a couple weeks ago plus 2 guys you haven't met. The snow conditions were deeeep and plentiful ! There was only 4 other guy's up there running shuttles on sleds other than that it was just snowmobilers. We took some pics but no digis so I'll have to wait to post. It was definitely one of those no consequences type of days so we built a small kicker over a rock drop and proceeded to launch ourselves in every which direction.

btw my friend has designed and built some really nice ski/snowboard carriers for his sleds and plans on selling them. I'll spam this place at some point.

[xboat]

sweet. i miss that place. i've only been up there sled skiing a couple times. buff gets a crapload of snow and is easily accesable by sled. many places to build gap jumps over the switchbacks....