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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Truckee, CA
    Posts
    8,784

    TR: [Return To] Castle Peak - 6.3.13

    It had been 12 days since I last skied Castle Peak (https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...e-Peak-5-22-13). As such, the snow jones was rattling around in my bones something fierce. So much so that at 4 pm on Sunday, June 2nd, I found myself loading up the Taco Mama and driving to the Castle Peak trailhead. Yet, once there, I opted to leave my gear in the truck; I guess I didn’t expect to find any easily accessible snow. Rookie mistake, as I found some skiable patches just above Castle Pass! At any rate, the main thrust of this mission was to scope out the west side of Castle Peak and see what was still available in terms of skiable terrain. I was not disappointed; the entire west ridge, all the way to Basin Peak, was holding.

    Back at the truck I pinged Vets: “We’re doing a west-to-east loop of Castle Peak tomorrow. Meet @ the trailhead @ 9.” The next morning we were trudging up the trail by 10. It took us under 2 hours to reach the top (that’s with photo slutting, and stopping to talk to folks on the trail).

    THE OBLIGATORY "POINT"
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    After a short lunch we scoped out our chosen entry point; it was steep, had boulders poking out on both sides, potentially hidden air pockets, but quickly flattened into a fairly wide bowl. Stev dropped in first and I followed suit once he was in a safe zone. Next we skied one of several chutes that branched off from the bowl. This got us closer to the floor of Coon Canyon, but we still had to do a rather long traverse, some bushwhacking, and ski another chute before we reached our next destination.

    VETS GETTING READY TO DROP IN
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    VETS DEMONSTRATING SUCCESSFUL BOULDER AND AIR POCKET EVASION TECHNIQUES
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    DOOKEY DROPS NEXT
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    FWIW, there were enough lines, chutes, and bowls still holding decent amounts of snow back there that one could easily have spent 3 days ticking them off a list. However, given the time--it was getting late and we still wished to ski one of the east facing chutes, plus the hike out--we chose to boot-pack up one of the chutes I hadn’t skied during my previous visit.

    VETS DOIN' THE BOOT-PACK
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    Once at the top of this chute we took a brief respite to enjoy the expansive view (and admire our west ridge tracks, as well). The snow ended up being much better on this side; a little firmer and less sludgy.

    DOOKEY CHUTIN' IT UP
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    VETS MILKING THE CHUTE
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    From the bottom of the chute we traversed as far as we could, swapped out our gear, and took the well-marked trail out of Coon Canyon and over the eastern ridge. From there we began bushwhacking our way to the last bit of snow we would ski: an east facing patch clearly visible from I-80. 2 weeks earlier this swatch of snow was a continuous strip, now, however, it was broken into 3 parts. We skied the top 2 parts, then began our descent back to the truck.

    VETS ABOUT TO HIT THE LAST SWATCH
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    Our hike out was without incident, though not devoid of swarming mosquitoes. In the end the entire trip was 10.5 hours from truck-to-snow and back again, with 5 runs logged, and at least 10 miles (the maps/guides state that it's roughly 6 miles r/t from trailhead to the peak and back via the west route, but we put in a few extra skiing down the backside and boot-packing for sure).

    PANORAMIC OF THE AREA WE HIKED/SKIED
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    Last edited by dookey67; 06-09-2013 at 03:07 PM.
    "Man, we killin' elephants in the back yard..."

    https://www.blizzard-tecnica.com/us/en

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    7,167
    PURE!!!

    rog

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    869
    Mountain biking up there today was pretty good too. Just sayin...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Truckee, CA
    Posts
    8,784
    i was half-primed to roll up there and schuss near Basin Peak and then the thunder started boomin'. bagged the trip and then, naturally, no rain (or lightning) appears! might hit it up on the morrow should the forecast clear up and the slight chance of thunder showers be just that (a slight chance).
    "Man, we killin' elephants in the back yard..."

    https://www.blizzard-tecnica.com/us/en

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