Front Range - CO

Mt. Parnassus (13,574')

Northeast Face

Another amazing spring day in the alpine. Cody and I decided on Parnassus peak for our Monday adventure. Weather looked clear and warm however with predictions for 30 mph winds with gusts upto 60. These winds would likely keep the exposed aspects of the northeast face from softening up, thus we were hoping to find some shaded more protected areas for our ski down the face. The approach went rather quick and simple with little terrain difficulties to navigate. The bootpack up the face was a tad entertaining given its length and steepness. After a few hours I topped out and waited for cody. The winds completely died down allowing me to enjoy the summit and scrabble towards Bard peak and get some fun shots of the NE face and Cody as he made his way up the face. On the descent we found a small entrance unguarded by the massive cornice that usually forms on Parnassus, however it was bulletproof and above a small rocky band. The entrance can be seen in the pick below (just lookers left of the two cornice mushrooms capping the two large boulders) After the initial entrance the snow became soft and rather deep form the first half of the face. Once down in the exit narrows, it became more of a dust on crust situation, however still rode great. The exit went for over 2 miles all the way to the car on perfect corn.

The entrance to our descent is hiding behind the rocks and left of the cornice cap

a look at the slope angle halfway up the climb

Summit Chilling - entrance just behind my pack

Front Range - CO

The Citadel (13,294')

Northeast Bowl - "Snoopy's Tail"

The Citadel aka "Snoopy" (When viewed from the south, The Citadel resembles Snoopy sleeping on his dog house

Cody and I left Golden with plans to climb and ski The Citadel, we choose to approach via Herman gulch given the weekends warm temperatures we wanted to avoid southern aspects which dominate routes when approaching the Citadel from Dry gulch. As we worked our way up Herman gulch we started to notice most aspects had been significantly effected by the freeze thaw cycle of the last several days. Was it going to get warm enough today to soften the crusts? What about northern aspects...had it gotten warm enough at the higher elevations to effect the northern aspects? As we continued we figured we had two good options....1) the NE bowl of the Citadel or 2) the South face of Pettingell Peak. After a couple of hours we were standing in the basin in between Pettingell and Citadel, we opted for Citadel as cloud cover, colder temps and a slight wind rendered south aspects as bullet proof. So we continued over to the lower apron of Citadel's NE bowl, hoping for protected soft snow. Money the snow was soft and the stoke was back! After a quick cat hole we decided to climb to the SE ridge and up to the CItadel. We noticed the strip was in from the summit block, although the strip faces south and thinly covers rock slabs the cooler temps kept the snow firm and made it a viable descent from the summit blocks. Thus we climbed the strip dropped our boards and continued over to scout Snoopy's Backside Chute (NE chute) for later in the spring season. The strip was a rowdy descent on bulletproof snow, however the NE bowl was MONEY the whole way!