Scouting for snow in the San Juans

The title of the post is a bit misleading...  kinda sounds like I actually had to go looking for it...  but fortunately for those of us that are still skiing here in southwestern Colorado, there's no shortage of skiable snow.

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I rolled out on my dirt bike yesterday in search of smooth, clean snow, as well as to determine which mountain passes had been plowed, and where the best access is.  I was able to cover 55 miles in two hours, which would have taken all day in a 4x4.  Note the 30'+ tall walls of snow at the top of Cinnamon Pass...


Even after all of my scouting yesterday, we ended up heading right back to where we skied last weekend, near the top of Cinnamon Pass, with an elevation (of the run we skied) of 13,400 down to 11,800.  It's not a huge pitch, but it's a quick enough bootpack up, and a nice, smooth ski down.  See the image below for the run we skied...


The other snow that looked good is over on Brown Mountain, near Hurricane Pass, which is past Silverton Mountain on CR110.  Unfortunately, however, that road is not plowed, and it's at least a mile back into the basin (before you even begin to climb up to skiable snow).  So we are sticking with the lazy-man's option of skiing from/to the truck for this week.


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