TR: 3 days on Red Mountain Pass

**fastfroggy** · 01-25-2010, 02:53 PM

Having lucked out last time we were in Silverton, we decided to head back to the san juan mountains and rent a hut up on the pass. the weather gods seemed to be on our side with plenty of new pow in the forecast. the trip started with a great day of skiing at silverton mountain thursday. with 17 inches of new snow, the mountain skied a lot better than late december when we first visited. the original plan was to ski silverton mountain or backcountry on the pass depending on weather and avi conditions. so off we were to our new adobe about 8 miles north of silverton.

no sooner had we moved in that we got a visit from cdot, informing us that the pass might close overnight. we looked at each other and decided to tough it out. how long could the pass remain close really? the answer, we would learn later, is about three long days. in retrospect, we should probably have packed up and retreated back to silverton. with 550 locked down on both sides, silverton mountain remained opened and plenty of pow was to be had with hardly anyone there.

we woke up friday morning with about 2 new feet of pow blanketing the pass. first order was to clear up a pass out of the hut to check out our new surroundings

550, looking south

Saturday came in and we could hear bombs going off all around us. later, cdot reopened 550 south to durango and even wolf creek down south. alas, red mountain mountain remained closed for the day. we didn't observe any natural avalanches despite being surrendered by fairly steep slopes. but lacking local bc knowledge and with the avi danger now at high (down from extreme the day before) we opted for a safe and flat tour around the area.

early sunday morning, rescue finally arrived with this big monster.

its friends soon arrived and started bombing the crap out of surrounding peaks.

then this guy came by to check what the ruckus was all about.

cdot blasted avi-prone slopes to the east of 550 without any real results.

things changed when the canon was pointed west towards telluride. cdot shot 14 rounds at Eagle, triggering three large releases, one of which ran over 550.

the crown. the air was saturated with snow and it was hard to tell how large it was.

the excess powder goes up in flame

on our way down to silverton, we came across one natural release that had taken down a couple of trees.

moral of this TR? while hanging out on an isolated snowy pass for three days is pretty cool, if cdot tells you it's about to lock down the area, get the hell out of dodge while you can