-- Tom's Trip Reports --

Arapaho Lakes 040514

A warm spring day until the snow came in gave us a pleasant run below the Continental Divide, then an icy luge run down the trail to the parking lot.

Crossing the tarn below the lakes.

I met up with Steve's trip at the East Portal at a decadent 11:00 AM meet time with Steve, Chris, and Scott coming in from Boulder. The parking lot was packed with AT skiers headed for Heart Lake, Haystack, and Rogers Pass.

Another big group gets ready to head up the trail.

The sun was warm and breezes gentle, but high clouds on the divide promised a change later in the day.

High clouds precede the storm.

The first 1200' of the climb to the meadow was uneventful until I started to get snow sticking to my skins, and I mean lots of snow. Steve rescued me with some Glopstopper, which I pressed into the orange part of the skins. It helped for a while, but I wasn't free of the problem until heading down.

At the top of our climb, we watched some AT skiers on a hill that Steve identified as Mt. Frostie.

AT skiers on the Mt Frostie uptrack to the divide.

We deskinned on a knoll near the lake and looked expectantly to the east for our choice of runs.

Ready to roll.

We encountered some soft wind slab and powder in the open at the top of the run. Once we entered the trees, we found soft powder in the shade. The gullies were tempting with their open slopes, but the sun exposure was not favorable for preserving the dry powder, turning it to a heavy wet version of powder.

All too soon we were back at the upper meadow. The snow moved in, cooling off the temperatures. After a quick bite, we hit the track out, which had converted from wet to icy. Chris followed me into the drainage to avoid the ice, but after a warning from Steve to not linger in the creek, we made several nice powder turns before climbing out to the trail. The drop to the bridge at the creek was as harrowing as ever, and the rest of trip out was relatively mellow, but still fast enough.

Scott gets ready to glide down the trail after the bridge.

At the meadow with the trail junction, the signage was nearly buried, giving us a hopeful prediction for continued skiing through the spring.

Trail junction signs in the meadow are nearly buried.

Snow is really picking up in the meadow.

Back in the parking lot, we were packed up to leave when Svetlota approached us for a ride to her house in Coal Creek Canyon. Her husband was skiing to the divide and after waiting 1.5 hours, she was ready to head home and wait there.