TR: Sunshine and Redcloud, 5-26-2007

[mtnbikerskierchick]

TR: Sunshine and Redcloud, 5-26-2007
(14,001' and 14,034')
goldenboy, jcwhite, mtnbikerskierchick

Goldenboy, jcwhite, and I all headed down to the Lake City area over Memorial Day weekend to tag some peaks. We were blessed with fantastic weather and excellent snow. The plan was this:
Saturday- Sunshine and Redcloud
Sunday- Handies
Monday- San Luis

Time was not on our side in getting out of town on Friday night. Delays on all parts caused us to arrive at the Grizzly Gulch and Silver Creek Trailheads around 12:30 at night. We found a good campsite near the trailhead (BTW, there is lots of camping at the trailhead, but it's not always easy to be close to your car since some of the campsites have no parking). The earliest we could see ourselves getting up was at 4 am, so that became the plan.

The night was cold, and we new when we woke up in the morning that the snow was well-frozen, which was a good thing.

We began around 5:15 or 5:30 am, just at first morning light.



We hiked up the Silver Creek trail until it split off to the South Fork drainage. We followed the South Fork drainage toward Sunshine. At the split we were able to put on our skis and skin up the drainage.



Skinning up toward the couloir on the route.



Goldenboy had a bit of bad luck in the couloir. This was the one place all weekend we could have experienced rock fall, and we did. As chances would have it, a rock fell 50 ft from the cliffs above the couloir and landed on goldenboy's knee. It caused him a great deal of pain, but luckily it was only a really bad bruise. A second later, and inch different, the rock would have hit him it the head. I was thankful it was not worse. After that we wanted to get out of the couloir ASAP. We had to briefly boot up the couloir toward the top.



We then were able to skin up for a few hundred more feet until the slope was too steep and icy for skins. We were able to boot up the last few hundred feet to the summit.


View of the west face of Sunshine which we booted up (seen from Handies the next day).



jcwhite arriving at the summit.



We enjoyed the views of the San Juans from the summit. Looking toward San Luis.


Sneffels



We summited around 9:30 am and the snow was prime on the NE face of Sunshine.

jcwhite dropping into spring corn.









I have no pictures of goldenboy skiing Sunshine because he took off to the bottom right away so he could shoot some video of us skiing down. jcwhite does have pics of goldenboy and I, however due to his sudden and recent move to Aspen, he won't be sorting through them any time son!

View back at the NE face we skied off of Sunshine. We had a sunshiney day and a sunshiney ski on Sunshine!!!!



We skied to about 2,300 ft down to 12,700 ' elev. From there we scoped out our options: how were we going to get to Redcloud? As we looked up we could see a very obvious slope we could boot up that would bring us to the ridge between Sunshine and Redcloud. But this slope was primarily east facing and the snow was warming quickly. The cornices at the top of this slope made us leary, so we traversed over to the ridge. The ridge was lower angle and less susceptible to wet slides with the warming snow.

Goldenboy's knee was obviously feeling better as he seemed to move in fast-forward motion, leaving jcwhite and I in the dust, and out of sight. When I rounded to the top of the ridge and finally got a better view of things, I saw no goldenboy. This was the first view of Redcloud's summit I could see since skiing down from Sunshine. I looked over at the summit. Several people were on the summit, but I could see one of them was covered in orange. Goldenboy is on the summit already!



We skinned up this ridge to a saddle and then followed the obvious ridge toward Redcloud.

By this time the snow was getting really wet and sticky. It was sticking horribly to my skins. I went from going an average pace to a really horribly slow pace. I was cursing the fact that my glopstopper was in the car and not in my pack. Every couple of steps I had to knock the snow off my skis/skins by hitting my pole against my skis. Well, I guess one time I just got really frustrated and hit my pole too hard against my skis..... as I watched the last 8 inches of my pole go flying off. Yep, carbon pole split. Great. I proceeded to the summit, cursing. A couple of minutes before I reached the summit, jcwhite caught up to me. He wondered why he'd caught up so fast, but quickly learned: glopping snow and a broken pole. Not exactly my day!

We didn't summit Redcloud until around noon. I think goldenboy might have been waiting for us for nearly an hour. He's like the Energizer bunny or something.

At the summit, I contemplated how I should fix my pole. Meh, nothing a little duct tape couldn't fix!


Admiring sweet lines from the summit of Redcloud.


jcwhite skiing off the summit of Redcloud, Uncompahgre and Wetterhorn in the background.


goldenboy skiing NW ridge



At the summit we scoped out a couple of line options. Originally we'd intended on skiing the east face, but it was far too late for that. So, we followed the NW ridge down a bit to check out the NW face. It looked great! Some fantastic lines there! But we couldn't tell what lines were continuous. It looked like they all might cliff out. So, we opted for a large chute that dropped off the west face. We'd spotted it on the way up. This would bring us right back to the South Fork drainage and we'd be able to ski back to the Silver Creek trail.

jcwhite








The snow was pretty fun! Good corn on the skiers left side (more N facing) of the chute!

Goldenboy







Goldenboy tearing it up with Handies in the background.



View of the line we skied off Redcloud, seen from Handies the next day.



All in all, it was a good day, despite a rock-fall injury and a broken pole. I was thankful I had an extra set of poles waiting for me back at the car. On our way back down the Silver Creek trail we could spot Handies and began planning our line for the next day.


Handies TR next!

Arrived back at TH around 2:30 pm. Total time: 9 hours. Total vert climbed: 5,900 ft. Tot vert skied: 4,800 ft.

[thebigeast]

RAD, still lots of snow down there in those parts, great tr

[leroy jenkins]

FKNA I love those little mini spine lines, that looks like so much fun.

I was going to say I hope Goldenboy feels better, but it looks like it isn't needed.

[jon turner]

Nice TR. I figured that couloir was where GB got attacked by a rock. We skied down through it on Monday. You were right about the snow - the east face was much more prime for skiing, but at least the west side wasn't breakable crust but just hardpack. It was good to meet you three out there. Lets all do some skiing sometime soon.

There still lots of skiing to be had down there in the san juans.

[doumall]

Nice TR MBSC. We had rockfall come down on us in that same couloir the weekend before. Hmmm... goats must be territorial in those parts. That Sunshine line was super fun huh, nice and consistent. One of my favorite so far despite its low technicallity.

[jcwhite]

Here are some pics of golden boy










and MBSC:

[Squirrel99]

Very cool trip. I see quite a few sweet lines on Redcloud!

I love the feeling of anticipation you get in the morning- when your objective comes into view!

[IridePow]

Nice TR!
Way to slay it.
But hey...... you summited Redcloud at 2:30 and were back at the trailhead at 2:30...... way to step it up and blaze down in 0 minutes!

[squirrelmurphy]

very nice!

goldenboy fuckin schreds, huh. dude's got perfect form in every picture.

[powdherb]

Good coverage for this time of year. Looks like you have at least a good week before its utterly bare.

[CommanderBaker]

you all be killin me with all these 'teener pixs/TRs

[Alpine Dreams]

Most excellent.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

jcwhite- thanks for the pics!!!!

leroy j- yes, I think goldenboy's knee was easy for him to ignore when he was skiing!!!!

jon turner- it was great to meet you and 3DB too! We'll get out and ski sometime hopefully soon!

squirrelmurphey- yes, goldenboy is probably the best skier I know. He definitely does shred it! Even in conditions where everyone looks bad (ie. breakable crust) he manages to look good!

IridePow- Good eye! Someone actually read the TR Edited for correct time. Summited at noon actually

[Huckwheat]

YEE HAW.....looks like fun.

That sounds super scary about the rock fall....yikes. Looks like it didnt prevent gb from having some fun skiing......and mbsc is definately having fun too!!!

[Huckwheat]

squirrelmurphey- yes, goldenboy is probably the best skier I know. He definitely does shred it! Even in conditions where everyone looks bad (ie. breakable crust) he manages to look good!

But you're not biased or anything.

I am going to go the other way and say, he is no fun at all to watch....he makes everything look to easy.....I like to see some excitement.

[smitchell333]

This sums up the beauty of backcountry skiing right here:




I love the San Juan's.

Did you guys do the east side of Handies or American Basin? Did you make it up Cinnamon Pass?

[mtnbikerskierchick]

But you're not biased or anything.

I am going to go the other way and say, he is no fun at all to watch....he makes everything look to easy.....I like to see some excitement.

Me biased? Never !!! Is it possible that he's too good??

I love the San Juan's.

Did you guys do the east side of Handies or American Basin? Did you make it up Cinnamon Pass?

I love the San Jauns too and they've been in great shape this season!!!! We didn't go up to Cinnamon Pass, no need to do so. For Handies we climbed up American Basin and skied down the east side to Grizzly Creek. We skied for more vert than we climbed That's the way to do it!!! Handies TR coming later today.

[Zeedashbo]

damn that snow looks nice. and what was that bright orb in the sky?

[skimoore]

Awesome shots...

[freshies]

sweet stoke, thx for sharing!

[3DB]

It's amazing how much conditions in that chute changed between your ascent and our descent. When Jon and I dropped into it, the snow along climber's left had pulled back into a weird, icy spine and your bootpack had converted into a bit of a runnel. All the snow in between was a sloppy, breakable crust scattered with rockfall (we kept our helmets on ). Pure survival skiing. Good times....

Nice to meet up (and briefly skin) with you guys!

[FrankZappa]

What else can I say. THANK YOU!

I jes loves the SJ country...

[Kya]

Nice pics you guys! Sweet looking ski-weekend too

[Greguar]

Sweet TR Brit, I heart the San Juans!

[goldenboy]

Thanks for doing all the TR's, MBSC

My knee still looks like it has a second kneecap and it takes a solid hour in the morning for it to finally loosen up. At least my head had swelled up in proportion to my knee thanks to all the kind words on this thread

Sunshine was so sweet and Redcloud wasn't bad either. Considering the easy access, I could see going back there again for sure. The San Juans are offering up amazing coverage and quality corn right now.

Nice to finally meet up with 3DB and jonturner, hopefully we'll make some turns together sometime soon