Mt. Bancroft

DV8 and I headed into some unknown territory Saturday - Mt. Bancroft, the first peak on the divide south of James Peak. The three peaks here looked very inviting on the way up - the one we were heading to, Parry and Eva. Very short ascents, when compared to some of the 6 plus mile approaches to some Indian Peaks skis descents! This was a 6.5 mile LOOP, and the other two mtns are 2 miles shorter...!? It served as a good warmup to the spring high peak skiing. The pictures below were snaked from DV8 (they're excellent quality as you can see!) and the pretty mediocre (at best) video is mine.

The top was shrouded in rolling fog, like Mt. Tam on a winter morning. The sun beat down on us on the east facing slope approach and without a breath of wind it felt like a virtual sauna.

We sat on the top of the pretty round peak (we almost couldn't figure out if we were at the highest point or not!) and waited for the fog to clear so we could see our route down. We definitely felt NOT at home here - no wind? Where art thou? This ain't Indian Peaks!

That tiny speck is me skiing down some very WET "powder"...or very deep "corn." It's definitely early spring out there with about a foot of new snow in the last week, it'll take some time to get that good corn going. See the sluffs around me? Yeah, we cut a couple of those off on our way down but nothing too worrisome as they were very slow moving and only the new wet snow was moving anywhere.

http://www.dropshots.com/meriwether#date/2008-05-18/21:56:26

Back to work tomorrow, and already thinking about next weekend...where to now? The spring peak season is here! Notchtop Couloir? Buffalo Mtn? hmm...