[TR] Red Mt.- 4/2/2004

[ilookeddown]

Climb: Red Mt.-

 

Date of Climb: 4/2/2004

 

Trip Report:

Skied up to Red Mt. this morning. Just went ½ up the west face before turning back. Too icy to continue safely w/o crampons which I did not bring. Snow seemed to be setting up nicely on the trip down. Should be a great day for spring skiing later in the morning. The sky was clear and temp. in the mid 30’s Did observe some fresh avalanche debris on the lower east facing slopes of cave ridge and on the west face of Red.

 

Gear Notes:

AT set up.

 

Should have brought ski crampons or started later in the morning.

 

Approach Notes:

Started at the commonwealth trailhead. Followed the old PCT to the basin. Kept high on the east side of the basin below Kendall. If you stay low in the basin you will have so negotiate multiple creek crossings.

 

One the decent I chose the west side of the basin so I could get some soft snow, I skied the lower slopes of Cave Ridge and Guye Peak. Once back at the creek I stayed NW of the creek and below south rib of Guye down to the road.

[pete_a]

just curious what time you left the trailhead and what time the snow was starting to corn up...probably skiing the west face tomorrow and my buddies and I were trying to figure out the best time to be topping out to catch the good snow.

Thanks!

[ilookeddown]

I left the trailhead at around 6:00am. Made it 1/2 up Red and headed down at 7:45. The snow was starting to set up well on sun expose slopes on the way down. Shady areas were still hard and icy. I couldn't see my tracks it was so hard in some places. At the time of this reply it is still 47 degrees up here. If I were to do it tomorrow I would leave at 7:00am just to get ahead of all the weekend snowshoe traffic. Desend by 10 or 11am before it gets too sloppy.