As of today, I haven’t skied for a week. I’m hoping to end that streak later today. Last Sunday evening I skinned up to the top of Chair 1 at Loveland to mark my 200th day on skis since last September. This season’s snowpack was below average, the winds were above average, and our usually snowy March never showed up. Despite these factors, it was a fun season. I enjoyed steep skiing, road trips, and deep-powder faceshots; just not in the frequency I would normally experience them. Now, summer work has started and saving money for next season has begun. In only a month, the days will begin getting shorter and the march toward next winter commences.

I got out for some early-May turns with Mark Morris the other day. The snow was just about perfect for how warm it was. It’s hard to beat skinning in t-shirts and jumping off cornices onto smooth corn snow.

As of Sunday, all of the ski areas in the state of Colorado will be closed. This is something that doesn’t usually happen until the month of June and in some cases July. Loveland Ski Area closed to the public last Sunday. The lack of snow combined with the waning interest from customers forced the ski area to close a week early. Arapahoe Basin, an area known for extending their season well into the summer, sometimes even as late as August, announced this week that they will be closing Sunday.

The last chair of the season at Loveland usually gets a good pelting with snowballs.

Despite all of this depressing news, there is still good skiing out there if you’re willing to work for it. After the ski area was closed, some fellow employees and myself skinned up to “The Ridge” to ski some fun terrain that never opened this season. The skiing was a mix of winter snow and springtime corn. Here’s John Sellers getting some good skiing on the lower section of “Wild Child”

The next day I got out with one of my favorite ski partners Gary Fondl. We decided to ski some snow-filled gullies just west of the tunnel. These lines drop nearly 1500′ off the ridgeline to the highway and offer some fun steep skiing and great views of the Gore Range to the west.

I love this kind of snow. Photo: Gary Fondl

It was Gary’s turn to ski.

Further down the line he found this nice vertical cornice to get some air off of.

The gully we chose to ski had a nice steep section at the bottom.

Here’s Gary making a hasty exit with the highway in the background.

The last week of April, a large dome of high pressure had been sitting over the state of Colorado for several days. Weather stations as high as 12,000′ had not shown a below freezing temperature for nearly 72 hours. The relentless heat was not kind to the already meager snowpack, as many locations around the state are below 50% of the normal settled snow depth for this time of year. Denver’s high hit a record value of 88 degrees. This was enough to surpass the high temps in cities such as Dallas, Houston, and Miami! The summerlike conditions have been enough to melt out high-alpine roads that are usually buried until mid-June, allowing for easy access to some bigger lines.

Mt. Parnassus sits between US 40 and I-70 and is in a group of four ’13ers’. It is the second highest of these peaks and has some quite aesthetic lines coming off it’s north face. With the promise of another unseasonably hot day, I decided this high north face would offer better ski conditions. This approach was pretty straightforward, I skinned up the mining road, which still had reasonably good coverage, into the main basin where my intended target became visible.

It was still mid-morning but the sun had already softened the snow in the basin to a wet, mashed-potato like consistency. The water in the wet snow was absorbed into my skins, making my skis quite heavy.

I eventually made it to the saddle to the West of Parnassus. From here it was an easy walk up the barren ridgeline, over the several false summits, to the top. Some mostly benign ‘pop-up’ showers were forming to the north, meanwhile it was perfectly clear directly overhead.

The line was a little intimidating from the top. The large bowl off the summit funneled into a rather tight couloir near the bottom, just out of view.

The snow at the top had not yet transitioned to slushy snow and was a little bit grabby with the mid-day heat. Further down I found some nice ‘corn’ snow for about a thousand feet before it turned to manky slush at the bottom. Here’s a shot looking back up the lower couloir section.

When I reached the bottom it was a quick ski down the access road to the car. It felt good to have everything work out on a solo outing like this and to ski a line that I’ve been pining after for years.

The recent storms coated this East facing line with a foot of ‘mashed potatoes’ over some smooth corn snow.

A series of weather disturbances moved quickly out of the Gulf of Alaska and on to the West Coast during the last few days. These moisture laden storms dropped one to two feet of snow as they moved inland and crossed the Continental Divide. This storm brought a much needed reprieve from the unseasonably warm and dry spring.

The first two days brought a couple inches of wet snow each night that fell on top of a mostly frozen base.

The following night 6-10″ of snow fell with moderate north winds. These winds drifted the snow to nearly two feet deep in some spots making for some very deep turns if you knew where to look.

Skier: Doug Evans Photo: Flip McCririck

Other spots were even deeper.

Skier: Eben Mond

With recent record warm weather, the Catkins have appeared on the Aspen trees. These fuzzy, flower-like growths appear on both male and female trees. Eventually the pollinated female catkins will blow away with the summer breeze. The translucency of these flowers creates a glowing appearance when backlit by the sunset.

The month of March was anything but typical. February ended with two weeks of the most winter-like weather we’ve seen all season. Usually this wet, wintry weather continues into our snowiest month, March. Instead, the skies cleared and the temperatures warmed. So much so, that by the third week of the month, the snow had all but melted below 9000′. Ski area parking lots went from icy, to muddy, to dry. Down in the city, flowering trees, crocuses, and tulips are making an appearance, two months early!

Due to the warm temperatures up to nearly 14,000′ during the second and third week of March, the high alpine changed to more late-spring or even summer-like conditions. A weak cold front dropped temperatures for a couple days, giving a window of relatively safer ski conditions on higher South facing slopes. I took advantage of these conditions and decided to ski Mt. Hagar (13,240ft.). The SE face of Hagar is visible from I-70, and despite it’s relatively short vertical, and offers several, thousand foot, 35-40 degree lines off the summit.

We found a nice pitch to take a photo on.

Eben on the summit looking North, toward Mt. Pettingel.

Looking east from the summit.

Looking NW toward the Williams Fork Range.

The snow off the summit was very smooth thanks to the 3 inches that had fallen a day before. The warm March sun had turned to new snow to soft smooth mashed potatoes. Here’s a POV shot of my line off the summit.

Eben found some nice snow and the steepest part of the line right off the summit.

Eben making some big turns.

A record warm and dry month of March has caused many trees at lower elevations to show their spring colors nearly a month earlier than usual.

I skied Hagar Mt. on Thursday. The snow off the 13000′ peak was surprisingly spring-like.