TR Mt Sneffels

Woolbury · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 1072 Location: Front Ranger

This past weekend I drove out to the west slope to visit my old friend JackS. I'd been bugging him about doing a ski trip out there, and he'd been bugging me to come fishing on the Gunnison. We manged to squeeze in both, and had some back to back epics.

Saturday we loaded up in the 4am darkness and headed south out of Delta. About an hour down the road we had a great view of our objective, Mt Sneffels(14150') in the pre dawn light.

After a tense but fun drive up the Camp Bird mine road into Yankee Boy Basin, we ran into the road closure, crossed one of many small streams and started our trip up the basin.

Finally the sun made its appearance and we proceeded up the basin on a nicely frozen snowpack.

The basin unfolds as we make our way towards Sneffels...

Up the basin we get a good view of the summit; the prominent couloir on the right leads to the summit and the chutes just right of the summit itself are the beginning of our descent route...

Around the corner we don crampons and begin the ascent toward Lavender Col...

As we ascend stunning views open up to the west...

Jack on top of the cornice ridge on Lavender Col...

We begin the steep ascent of the east couloir...

A couple of snow climbers top the col and begin the ascent of the gulley behind us. Helmets are in order...

Jack stops to soak in the views and pop some energy gel. I keep carefully putting one foot in front of the other...

We reach the top of the gully and spot the summit about 2-300' above. We leave the skis at the top of the snowfield and begin the scramble to the top...

The climb is not as hard as it looks, but to compensate, we later decide to ski a chute on the face and have to downclimb to the skis, and reclimb with skis to enter the chute near the summit...

On the summit at last. Note the runs of Telluride over my shoulder and all the TTippers starting their day at the Bluegrass fest way below...

The Wilsons and El Diente in the distance, on the far horizon, the LaSalles and Henry's...

The endless expanse of peaks of the San Juans...

Time to begin our descent and ski. Though there is nice snow cover on the summit, we have to cross about 100' of rock to enter the Birthday Chutes on the South face below us...

An AT skier we met on the ascent preceeds us on the tricky downclimb...

We're in the chute, ready to ski, but first a Pell Mell moment. Jack illustrates the effect of nicotine at 14000'

Let's get it going! Jack at the top of the chutes...

Jack ripping in the Birthday Chutes...

The chute we're descending closes up; to the left a tight choke prevents our passage, but to the right a steep roll opens to a lower chute to the apron below...

I come over the top of the roll, and hop my way down the steep section below...

We ski the lower chute, nearly 2000' of steep perfect corn...

Jack digging in to the sweet corn on the apron below...

As we decend we view some of the endless selection of lines in the basin...

Including an interesting one we named the Bart Simpson chute...

The road down the valley and back home doesn't seem nearly as tense on the way out for some reason

The next morning we're down on the river, having another type of adventure...

and doing pretty well against these tough adversaries...

But the buzz from yesterdays trip and the image of that peak keep us company on the river that day.

telemikey · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 1535 Location: Yurp

Nice
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Mir · Joined: 08 Dec 2004 Posts: 421

Nice line!!!

Another mountain added to the list.

baetis · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2751 Location: Salida, CO

Nice 'Bow.

noinstability · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 639

nice line, beautiful scenery. nice looking fish too.

porter · Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 627 Location: Missoulistan

Wool,

Just curious: was the road actually 'closed' where you parked or just not drivable. And, how many hours of hiking did you have to get to the summit?

teletodd · Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 162 Location: GW Bush's Outhouse

Man, Wool, those are some good pics.

Ya gotta love Sneffels, that's a beautiful peak.

Looks like old man winter was good to the San Juans this year.

TT

Shan · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:38 pm Post subject:

v nice!

Rontele · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 2:04 pm Post subject:

great TR - skiing lines, casting lines!

Woolbury · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 1072 Location: Front Ranger

porter, we drove to what's called the 2 wd parking-but you really need 4wd to get there. There's another 2 mi or so of 4wd road into basin, but thats under 6' of snow. The approach is rather short and sweet-under 4 mi in & about 3500'. We summited in a little over 3 hours. For as aesthetic as this peak is, it's very approachable, has lots of snow and just the right amount of gnar factor. Cool

telehead · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 2:29 pm Post subject:

I love Sneffels. Hands down my favorite 14er and that TR was excellent. Turns in the AM, casts in the PM?!?! Are you kidding me?

I've said it before, I want to be Woolbury when I grow up. Smile

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trackhead · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 2383 Location: Following Maynard

Great TR.

cesare · Joined: 06 Dec 2004 Posts: 9330 Location: People's Republic

Oh yeah, way to go get it! Cool

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steven hatcher · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 3:03 pm Post subject:

One of the best trip reports I've read in a while. I love staring at Sneffels everytime I visit my sister in Montrose. Great panorama of the La Sals and Henry's, too. Excellent read. Thanks.
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tele-L · Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 483 Location: Silverthorne, CO

Very nice TR....great pics and some great skiing. Thanks for sharing!