Hagar Mountain Skiing 3/23/2012

We met the first crux of the day when, despite hearing word from Loveland that the BC gate was in place, we found that it actually was not. After a few seconds of deliberation, we ducked the rope, and sidestepped up behind a knoll and out of view to put our skins on. As we reached the saddle between Mt. Trelease and Point 13,010' we were treated to this excellent view of Citadel's south face.

Our goal, Hagar Mountain. We would end up skiing the wide gully just lookers left of the summit. The first time I did Hagar, we stayed right on the ridge crest, which involved enough up and down that it was of debatable efficiency. This time we dropped a couple hundred feet into the wide basin at the top of Dry Gulch and ran a straight shot to the lowest saddle south of Hagar's summit. I think this is how I will climb this peak from now on.

The north face of Coon Hill is surprisingly well filled in. I expected a lot less snow.

Reilly is training for the Elk Mountains Grand Traverse, a brutal sounding 40 mile backcountry ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen. So, he was on his silly randonee race gear, which made for a pretty funny contrast between my heavy, burly tele rig.

Reilly climbing the aesthetic crux to the summit.

Our coworkers at WildyX are all convinced that it is climbing season, so Reilly wanted to show them that Scarpa F1s make great alpine bouldering footwear.

Meanwhile, I did some drytooling with my Whippit.

Reilly dropped first, making many smooth, controlled turns on perfect corn. Unfortunately rando gear does not allow for super fast, powerful skiing.

Continuing down the line. The tracks on the left are my friend Eben's from the day before... and reflect more accurately the turn radius I made on the way down.

Reilly finishes out the bottom of the face.

Looking back up at the SE face of Hagar. Great day!