The Colorado backcountry ( and that of most of the rockies) has been very unstable and downright scary this winter, reports of avalanche accidents were very high early in the year. Fortunately things have begun to mellow out here in the Sawatch Range. Mica and I had not spent any time in the backcountry yet this year, until today. We chose to head up a trail to the Waterdog Lakes. It was about two miles of climbing, maybe 1500ft of elevation gain to about 11,300ft. These lakes are high alpine lakes 500ft below treeline.
The trail was well used by snowshoers mainly and was a pretty easy skin up. When we finally arrived at the first lake, we were taken back by the vista in front of us. The ridge line you see is the Continental Divide. Of particular interest to us skiers was the cornice that formed on top of the ridge. It was almost a mile long and looked to be 10-20' high! That is a perfect recipe for some serious avalanche activity. Needless to say, we didn't ski below it.
Instead, we opted to keep our tracks below treeline. There is something about skiing in the trees that makes you feel safer and less prone to avalanche potential, even though with the right conditions there can be avalanches well below tree line. I skied off one the other week 400' below treeline. Anyway, the sun was shining hot and the conditions were like spring, kind of like skiing on frosting. As long as we got our skiing in before the temps started to drop, we'd be fine.
Hati and Soli were loving the adventure. Hati slides down the snow like an otter and Soli runs so fast she almost knocks us over as she comes down the trail. This adventure is just as much for them as it is for us! As we ski further away from the lake, there are no other tracks to follow, so the dogs sometimes like to follow us and tend to walk on the backs of our skis. I used to do the same thing to my Dad when we were out skiing when I was a kid.
It was getting later in the day, remember the whole inauguration, and although the ridge line in the background had a skin track set up it, we decided to leave it for another day. We descended through the trees, having some great turns in the sunny spots and some crunchy turns in the shade. It is amazing how fast the snow will freeze after the sun fades away.
This was a great spot less than 10 minutes from home, I know we'll be back up there soon, as we didn't even begin to see all of the terrain around the Waterdog Lakes.
