San Juan Mountains, CO - 01/20/07

[eatskisleep]

Awesome!

[RIDEr]

Very nice terrain, but I would think the San Juans had a little more snow... nice pow shots though.

[koreshot]

Originally Posted by RIDEr

Very nice terrain, but I would think the San Juans had a little more snow... nice pow shots though.

I thought the same too. There was more powder in Silverton last time I was there.

In El Diablo's defense, there was deeper snow in the trees (thigh deep in places), where I didn't take any pictures or video.

I think the face that it hadn't snowed for 5 or 6 days was another problem. It snowed 3 feet up there earlier in the month, but the wind and weather had compacted it to more like boot top.

[RIDEr]

Originally Posted by koreshot

I thought the same too. There was more powder in Silverton last time I was there.

In El Diablo's defense, there was deeper snow in the trees (thigh deep in places), where I didn't take any pictures or video.

I think the face that it hadn't snowed for 5 or 6 days was another problem. It snowed 3 feet up there earlier in the month, but the wind and weather had compacted it to more like boot top.

Did you spend any time at Wolf Creek Mountain? I know the San Juan Cat Skiing company (if not part of the mountain) is damn close and has a 74 inch base !

[koreshot]

Originally Posted by RIDEr

Did you spend any time at Wolf Creek Mountain? I know the San Juan Cat Skiing company (if not part of the mountain) is damn close and has a 74 inch base !

Based on what I have heard, the San Juan Cat Skiing company has similar terrain and snow to El Diablo.

The lack of snow was not a big issue. The base was pretty good; I only got one scratch on the base all day. The biggest issue for snow up there was the wind. There are lots and lots of ridges that get hammered with wind, snow gets blown off the tops. Another problem is the amount of the terrain (looks like ~75%) facing south or east. They had gotten enough snow for most of the terrain to fill in very nicely, there just wasn't a whole lot of fresh snow. 5 days of wind and sun will make 3 feet of snow into 1 foot pretty quickly.

I skied at Wolf Creek Mountain the day before doing the cat skiing. That place is empty and we found some untracked stuff in there. The snow quality was better in El Diabo, but WC probably had a deeper base.... not by a whole lot. Hit a few rocks there too.