Quandary - south facing snow slopes

Hey there,

I'm looking to do a snow climbs either tomorrow (friday) or saturday on Quandary's south facing slopes - coming up from the blue lakes/dam trail. Does anyone know the current snow conditions for these climbs? I believe that the avalanche danger is pretty low due to the well consolidated snowpack. Anyone been up there lately? If so, how did you come down and which one/ones did you climb?

Also do you know anything about the current weather conditions, is it snowing much up there? Enough to change avy conditions?

It's really warm up here and has been, I would really pay attention to the evening and night time temperatures and watch for a freeze, Especially if you intend to be on South Facing,

It's shed season, If there is rapid warming and no freeze at night, Go play golf instead

Have you checked-out 14ers.com? Very helpful and current.
14ers.com/php14ers/peakstat…

I went up and down Cristo Couloir yesterday (June 9th). I believe it hovered around freezing the night before - not sure if it ever quite got there. In any event, no evidence of recent avy activity, no cornices, nothing that gave me cause for concern. Snow quality was meh.

Went up and down Angel of Shavano today (June 10th). Very slushy in the early afternoon. It's hot up there.

Bubbles wrote:I went up and down Cristo Couloir yesterday (June 9th). I believe it hovered around freezing the night before - not sure if it ever quite got there. In any event, no evidence of recent avy activity, no cornices, nothing that gave me cause for concern. Snow quality was meh. Went up and down Angel of Shavano today (June 10th). Very slushy in the early afternoon. It's hot up there.

Negative. All I have is a bunch of GoPro footage - no pics. Bill Middlebrook over at 14ers.com put up a TR that is essentially identical to mine, but just for grins...

My car made it to about .5 mile from the dam. Got there at 0400, elected to take a nap that went far too long, and was at the dam around 0715. Put on crampons about 100 vertical feet above the dam. Solid snow all the way to the talus just below the summit, summited around 0930. Got good placements without much effort or concern. Someone I passed was wearing snow shoes and really had to stomp her feet for placements. Did not look fun.

Hell of a glissade!

Wx was good but warm. Long sleeve shirt and gloves. I'm no expert, but the snowpack appeared well consolidated, no hanging cornices, no debris piles, etc. I dont know where a wet slab slide would come from unless there's something well under the surface. I imagine the threat of that diminishes with every warm day, and it has been quite warm lately.

With Cristo and Angel of Shavano, and seeing the water running off the Angel, and the high temps forecast throughout next week, I definitely have the feeling that the clock is running on a lot of the snow climbs in the central mountains. At least the south facing ones, and especially stuff in the southern Sawatch. From the summit of Shav/Tab, it looked like there was significantly more snow on the Elks and San Juans.

FWIW, for all the raves I've heard about the Angel of Shavano, I found it to be vastly overrated. Too mellow of a slope, and its only a small portion of a larger hike, rather than the majority of the adventure.