Friday Corn

Colorado,Red Mountain Pass,San Juan Mountains,skiing
Skier: Claudia Brauer.

On Friday, Claudia and I got back out into the mountains to enjoy some more turns. Monday’s foot of fresh snow had baked down to about 3-4 inches of old powder corn snow (For those who don’t backcountry ski, “corn” snow is snow that goes through multiple melt/freeze cycles, resulting in a firm but smooth snow surface that softens up nicely by around noon on a sunny spring day. In my opinion, it’s the next best thing to fresh powder!)

Colorado,Red Mountain Pass,San Juan Mountains,skiing
Skier: Claudia Brauer.

I took Claudia up to one of the taller peaks around. It was Claudia’s first time skiing corn snow, and she rocked it!

Backcountry spring skiing in the San Juans, Colorado

We skied/snowboarded from the summit down a beautiful long untracked line, then skinned back up to the high ridge and scored a nice long bonus descent down the front side. What a day!

5 thoughts on “Friday Corn

  1. Jack,

    Some really nice trip reports lately! So, how is the snowpack right now compared to last year? It seems healthier? Hopefully more snow will blanket the mountains with this weekend’s approaching snow.

    1. Thanks Justin! I don’t know the official numbers, but I’d guess that the snowpack is about at average right now. Unfortunately, though, there is a nasty dust layer right near or at the surface, from a few bad dust storms earlier in the month. So once the thin layer of fresher white snow melts off, the dust will be revealed fully and the snowpack will suffer quickly. It’s already happened at the lower elevations. So our only hope for more good spring skiing is more snow – hopefully the storm forecasted for the weekend pans out!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.