Up-to-date information by Eli Helmuth on climbing route and trail conditions in Rocky Mountain National Park and throughout the Estes Valley of Colorado.  Avalanche forecasts and skiing conditions in the alpine region are also reviewed.  

Warning:  Route conditions change constantly, especially in the mountains.  Climbing is dangerous.  Be flexible in your climbing plans, prepared for the worst and experienced enough for what you are doing. Seek qualified instruction and use proper equipment.  We accept no liability for your decisions in the peaks.   

Friday, June 13th, 2008

The last week marked a return to more winter-like conditions in the high peaks and again this morning, temperatures here at 8,700' are in the mid-30'sF which means it's well below freezing in the high country and plenty cold enough for ice climbing at the higher altitudes.  On Monday this week (6/9), Jason Mines and I made an ascent of Martha on Mount Lady Washington, and again we found perfect ice conditions for the entire route with firm neve between the icy bits and overall, great conditions for anytime of year, let alone mid-June.  Due to the continued cold weather all of this last week, I would predict similar conditions at the moment and this should help ease the crowds on the popular Dreamweaver couloir as both it, the Flying Dutchman and Martha are all in great ice shape and should stay that way through at least this weekend. For a great look at conditions on the north and east faces of Longs Peak this week, check-out the Photo of the Week, taken on June 9th from the south face of Mt. Lady Washington.

                       Eli starting the last pitch and the current crux of Martha on June 9th, 2008

Preceding this week's cold and windy weather, last Thursday the 5th saw a good sized dump of new snow here at the house, with over an inch of accumulation piling up on the deck before the sun came out late in the day.  During this same storm, the peaks received up to 6 inches of fresh snow which was followed by a high-wind storm on Friday the 6th that moved around much of this new snow onto lee slopes and in these locations, up to a foot of wind-formed slabs were the result. 

                                      Snow falling for more than 5 hours at the house on June 6th, 2008

On Saturday the 7th, Eric Sparks and I headed back out for another round of spring ski mountaineering with a goal of skiing off the summits of the more western Never Summer Mountain Range, which lies just west of the Continental Divide in RMNP.  But the Trailridge Road was closed again due to "drifting" of the new snow as it has been for much of the last week.  (See the latest news section of this site for information and phone numbers to call for checking on road conditions/closing).  So with the highway west closed again, we shifted gears and returned to Bear Lake with the hope of skiing something good near the Continental Divide and the Notchtop Couloir. 

Eric traversing the Continental Divide directly west of the Ptarmigan Glacier in RMNP on June 7th, 2008

Upon reaching the top of the Notchtop Couloir after 2.5 hrs. of mostly skiing with less than a mile of walking on trails up Flattop Mountain, we looked back to the northwest to see numerous large crowns, the result of natural slab releases in the new storm layer which was sitting on a dirty looking, old snow surface.  These large crowns, which had obviously propagated some distances, made us re-evaluate our Plan A of the Nothtop Couloir, which had this same potential for propagating slabs in the new snow layer which was still covering this steep chute.  Our view of the Ptarmigan Headwall just to the west was ideal from this location, and so we picked out a line over there that we hoped would make for a reasonable and interesting Plan B.

          Eric scoping out conditions across the valley on the nearby Ptarmigan Fingers and Headwall

Backtracking for ten minutes brought us to the top-center of the Ptarmigan Headwall and the line which we had sussed out from afar looked great although it was a bit obscured in the clouds and we waited patiently for the white-out to pass before dropping into this sustained 45 degree slope for a 400m direct drop into the upper Ptarmigan Valley.  Snow conditions were already a bit sloppy at 10am and we ski-cut some large areas of warm surface sluffs before committing to what was an ideal descent of this imposing but very skiable headwall.

                                           Looking up the Ptarmigan Headwall on June 7th, 2008

Another view of the Ptarmigan Headwall in better conditions (May '03) showing our line of descent from last weekend (#2).  There was a new crown running under the entire cornice between lines #1 and #2 which head cleared all of the new snow off of the slope and to the right, a slope-wide angled crown covered the upper 2/3 height of the slope between lines #3 and #4.

Since Monday the 9th, it's been mostly cold and windy in the high peaks of RMNP with mostly winter-like conditions up high which have been perfect for the formation of water ice and as a result, many of the high-country testpieces such as The Window and Eighth Route on Longs, Vanquished on Powell Peak, and possibly Hallett's Chimney on Hallett Peak have formed into decent if not great ice conditions this last week and it will be first come, first serve tomorrow morning.  Very early starts, ideally starting to climb in the dark (pre-5am) would be ideal for catching these routes in some state of frozen-ness.  The higher you are up in elevation, the less of a worry the heat of the day may become, so Hallett's Chimney climbers should be off the earliest with the heat there likely being more of an issue.   Stettner's Ledges, along with the North Chimney up to Broadway are currently filled-in with sections of ice and Stettner's has contained mostly ice along it's original 1927 for the last few weeks.  The beginning of Alexander's Chimney is also very thick ice and as this route wasn't much more ice covered during the regular forming Oct-Nov. season, these could be just as good if not better conditions at the moment.

                             The west face of Longs Peak, soaking up the morning sun on June 7th, 2008

Trail systems in the park are currently a mix of from mostly dry and easy up to Chasm Lake to sloppy and post-holey on the way into Black Lake, Sky Pond or Lake Helene.  Snowshoes or ski's would be recommended for the latter approaches with sneakers being doable most of the way into Chasm Meadows, except for the final snow covered slope which is traversed (ideally with crampons and axe) into the meadows.

Hopefully the winds of this last week die down for the weekend as it has been close to hurricane strength for much the last 5 days with gusts exceeding 60mph at 12k on a daily basis.  Our climb of Martha on Monday was cold and mostly out of the wind until topping-out on the summit where the northerly wind hit us hard in the face and made standing up a chore.  The North Face, Keyhole, Keyhole Ridge or Clark's Arrow routes are more wind exposed and would have been brutal to hang-out on this last week.  Even Lumpy Ridge has been getting battered with powerful snow squalls which made it feel a bit more like November than mid-June.  It looks like Saturday should be the best one of this week, so congrat's to all of the weekenders who will go from dawn to dusk tomorrow to take advantage of perfect alpine weather in Colorado.

The south face of Notchtop (seen above on 6/7/08), the Petit Grepon and Saber, the Cathedral Wall, Zowie, Wowie, and the south face of Arrowhead should be plenty warm enough for enjoyable climbing on Saturday and beyond, although there could be a bit of ice in the shadier cracks.  The crux this time of year is the snow-covered trail systems past The Loch and Mills Lake in terms of depth and strength of the snowpack.  Ski's have been helpful and snowshoes would make the bad sections (Spearhead bench, below Black Lake, below Skypond, and in the trees where the snowpack is likely going to be weak and post-holey until it is gone in July.  In the meantime, good gaitors, snowshoes and waterproof boots would be ideal for all of the approaches above treeline in RMNP.

The avalanche danger rating is currently MODERATE on all steep aspects due to surface sluffing, cornice collapses, and potential slab danger from last week's storm that may still be lingering.  On "hot" slopes due to sun and lack of wind, avalanche danger will increase to CONSIDERABLE and we should all be looking high above us for possible trigger points, especially large cornices which should be avoided.  In tours throughout RMNP over the last few weeks, likely due to extra wind loading this winter, there are more large cornices hanging over slopes than usual and their general size is bigger and as a result, there have been more large chunks of cornices laying all over slopes and valley bottoms that have released in the previous two weeks.  The potential for this serious objective danger is higher than usual and so climbers and skiers should likely avoid passage or minimize their time when traveling under or around these "sleeping monsters" as a heat spell this weekend could spark a continuation of this large-scale shedding process.