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I haven't skied Snodgrass Mountain in years. It's just right there across the street from Mt. Crested Butte. It's even been considered for a (controversial) ski area expansion.
It's been about a week since we had fresh snow so I wasn't expecting much in terms of skiing powder, but my friend and I figured it would be a fun tour anyway.
We climbed the usual, well-established skin track (a typically Buttian steep one!) and worked our way up to the summit. We looked over the East side and it had been skied a bit recently. Views were nice but snow looked so-so and some wind loading there made me a little nervous.
IMGP1588-Edit by MattB.net, on Flickr
We fought our way through some really tight trees (missed the glade my buddy thought he could find) and eventually found ourselves at the top of a nice looking pitch that had a couple of tracks on it but also plenty of fresh snow. We evaluated the snowpack and decided it was good (enough) to go (persistent weak layer next to the ground as always so it would either be fine or catastrophic). The snow wasn't super deep but what was there was settled well enough to look like good skiing. We decided this was the spot and headed down.
The snow was mostly great. We skied three pitches with lots of creamy fluffy turns down to Gothic Rd.
IMGP1650-Edit by MattB.net, on Flickr
There was a spot in the middle pitch that the snow got grabby for a couple of turns. My partner got grabbed.
IMGP1634-Edit by MattB.net, on Flickr
It's been about a week since we had fresh snow so I wasn't expecting much in terms of skiing powder, but my friend and I figured it would be a fun tour anyway.
We climbed the usual, well-established skin track (a typically Buttian steep one!) and worked our way up to the summit. We looked over the East side and it had been skied a bit recently. Views were nice but snow looked so-so and some wind loading there made me a little nervous.
IMGP1588-Edit by MattB.net, on Flickr
We fought our way through some really tight trees (missed the glade my buddy thought he could find) and eventually found ourselves at the top of a nice looking pitch that had a couple of tracks on it but also plenty of fresh snow. We evaluated the snowpack and decided it was good (enough) to go (persistent weak layer next to the ground as always so it would either be fine or catastrophic). The snow wasn't super deep but what was there was settled well enough to look like good skiing. We decided this was the spot and headed down.
The snow was mostly great. We skied three pitches with lots of creamy fluffy turns down to Gothic Rd.
IMGP1650-Edit by MattB.net, on Flickr
There was a spot in the middle pitch that the snow got grabby for a couple of turns. My partner got grabbed.
IMGP1634-Edit by MattB.net, on Flickr
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