Thread: Berthoud Pass 2011-2012 Observations, Conditions and Stoke

Don't hate Underoos. Ive tapered off the drinking so I can ski / travel more. If that's possible? Oh, and take more photos...

Nomad, you drink, na. I'll be up this weekend parking the trailer and shitter in your parking lot Sat. night ski Sunday.

Originally Posted by NOMAD

Don't hate Underoos. Ive tapered off the drinking so I can ski / travel more. If that's possible? Oh, and take more photos...

I take plenty of photos, but they are more appropriate in the fishing forum. Do you even fish anymore?

Saw you in the cat shop the other day. Nice hippie hair. Does it slow you down when you run?

Berthoud relates: Beuatiful day today, hope someone is getting some.

Anyone up for dawn patrol tomorrow? Partner backed out this evening. Likely 630 or so until around 10.

Originally Posted by Lindahl

Anyone up for dawn patrol tomorrow? Partner backed out this evening. Likely 630 or so until around 10.

We'll be up there. Leaving Golden at 6:30 if you want to join up.

Originally Posted by Wobby

We'll be up there. Leaving Golden at 6:30 if you want to join up.

Sounds good. What do I look for? Pink/green jacket, dukes and BIllygoats.

Originally Posted by Lindahl

Sounds good. What do I look for? Pink/green jacket, dukes and BIllygoats.

cool man, you sound easy to spot. Look for a large and multicolored technicolor jackass. Large coat, yellow pants. Dukes and some Unity Skis. probably be at the pass around 7:30? depends on road conditions

Was able to get in touch with a buddy last minute and get out there. Didn't see you out there, but the wind was blowin something nasty so we couldn't really see much until the sun peeked out around 10am. I'll catch you guys some other time.

Was nuking when we got up there. Due to high winds, it was hard to tell how much new snow had fallen and was falling. Things tapered off around 10am and the sun peeked out. Though, it was nuking in Idaho Springs on the drive into work. South facing stuff had a suncrust, or was partially melted off. A lot of alpine stuff was completely windfucked. I guess it's no surprise that the wind and sun has done significant damage to the snow up there, but if you can find areas that weren't touched by either, and was able to be filled in enough to cover the rocks, then the skiing was pretty damn good.

Kicked off a little sluffalanche, nothing too concerning, but the winds are definitely loading some areas up. Also saw another older mini-lanche in the area. Both NE facing in windloaded gullies. Looks like it was sliding on the melt-freeze crust from warm temps about 1.5 weeks ago? Likely same crust that had me interested up on the Bald Spot last weekend. When we get some serious dumpage, anything that doesn't natural might be pretty frickin scary from that slick crust.

PoopGhost will probably throw up a little video he shot showing the ski conditions, but here's a photo of our slide, the crown from the old slide (bottom of photo), and our tracks.



Oh, and some random artsy stoke...

worth checking out tomorrow?

No fancy editing or music... but you get the idea.

JONG here sorry, but I am thinking about heading up there tomorrow to do some low angle, first day equipment shake down riding. I haven't had the chance to drive over the pass yet this year, and I was wondering if any of the low angle stuff is in play? Trying to minimize avy danger as much as possible and keep things fairly easy since this will be my first time on a splitboard and I need to get it dialed in and just get used to skining.

There's plenty easy to find, low angle places to skin ranging from right around the parking lot to further out. Found some pretty good turns last week, wind may have changed that though...

@spyder

you can never really go wrong with the tree's in hells half acre. they stay in the shade all year long so it's usually one of the deepest spots (as far as a base goes) I've seen at times on berthoud.

HHA? If you stay where run 11 or 12 is marked I'd agree - but hanging meadow and the fingers "areas" are not what I'd call brainless.



If you want to skin and work out a split board then head across the street from the parking lot - follow the skin track up and then ski back down next to it. Low angle - hard to end up in any trouble areas.

Bamboo - we need to hookup for some laps soon.

I wouldn't recommend going as far as the meadow, either. that's a good way to end a season early haha. Last year was an exception, you might agree...

It's looks sunny after monday so I might get out for a skin either tues/thurs/fri.

Thanks for the help, had a lot of fun out there today, and only lost a powder basket from my poles, so all in all a good day. I just really need to get used to walking up a hill.

Was it miserably cold up there today?? The high tomorrow is 9. Bleh. I am thinking of heading up in the morning, but the thought of getting even mildly sweaty from skinning and subjecting myself to evaporative cooling at such a low temperature is, welp, unappealing!

On another note, I was up on Friday and it was fun! The trees around Peter Rabbit were soft and holding snow decently from just below XYZ chutes on down. Above that though, the snow was a slab of chalk (sketched me out a bit...) and, needless to say, not nearly as fun.

I usually stay very toasty in most conditions but I did not think it was too cold. There was some wind which made it worse but I had on my jacket, t-shirt, and wool baselayer and felt fine. Also because it was a learning day I spent a decent amount of time exposed on the slop and didn't get to cold.

Thinking about stopping by around noon for a lap or two after a job interview and before I have to head to work. 2 door wrangler with Georgia plates, rocking a Venture/ blue shell. Wave me down if you want to join

I'm gonna poke around on thursday. been pretty cold so hopefully it's still soft around...

Depending on how late I have to work on Wed, I might try to join you early Thursday.

Originally Posted by Lindahl

http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/...a=%24ROOT)/.do

Free high-res PDF downloads. I use this for all my backpacking/backcountry/off-trail travel in all seasons.

With Oziexplorer or CompeGPS and the USGS map in tiff format from libremap.org, you have the same tool (if not better) than National Geografic for all the country (I would say the world ... )

poopghost (and anyone else who'd like to join) I'll be up around 9 tomorrow. yellow jacket, don't mind my steeze...

Anyone go up the last day or so? Is it worth a damn up there? I really want to get out and take some pictures... this early season is depressing so far.

^^^ Just got hoof it a little further into the wilderness to find the goods. Are you getting the vail pass this year Steve? Follow Lindahl around - he's been having a pow fest lately.