Ever since my first trip to Gothic 5 years ago, I had a strange attraction to it's East Face. It has a beautiful upper face, with an exciting crux halfway down. If you ski at the ski area, you can't help but stare at Gothic's beautiful East face.
Our tracks this morning
Three years ago we went to Gothic for my bachelor party. That was my first time skiing Gothic and this morning we decided to give it a go again. I stayed at the gothic huts this past weekend so I knew that there was a passage around the ice-fall.
Cold temps, and a little new snow provide firm cramponing conditions straight up the Spoon. Last week the snowpack was not refreezing well and it was pretty rotten. This morning it was firm and allowed us to cruise up the mountain.
Our first peek at the East Face
Zach managed to drop his helmet and we watched it slide 3000 feet to the bottom of the West Face. Yep, he's a professional.
To our delight it was still pretty cold and we were not real concerned about the snow heating up to much.
There was a thin layer of creamy new snow, but we felt our edges on the firm melt-freeze below. South Maroon in the background.
the East face... makes one feel very small.
Sean through the narrows
The crux was a icefall/cliff area that we had to get around
We were able to traverse skiers right of the cliff and exited on the never-ending apron.
A Crested Butte classic
Nice we are getting some peaks in righ now, because the way things are going the snow will not be around for long. I really can't argue, getting pretty excited to ride my mountain bike.
Eszter and I have the Grand Traverse in a week... should be interesting. I have some media that I have been working on for the race that I will post in the next few days.
Cheers!
Chris
Nice job. I'm jealous.
Posted by: Naplis_merlin | March 23, 2012 at 02:35 PM