Conditions on 4/29

[Carter]

Besides the fact that the weather was beautiful, the skiing was gorgeous. There was a warning of falling ice from the headwall and from the right gully, but other than that there were no problems. The right gully does not have very much snow at all. The left gully is excellent, and most of the chutes on the left side were in general much better than the headwall itself. The crevass is opening up in several places making climbing up difficult in some places, but doable. You have to hike out of the bowl to Hojo's, and the Sherburne trail is open about 1/2 way down, but you have to take your skis off 3 times. After the warm weather on sunday, it is very questionable whether it is worth skiing down unless you don't care about your skis. Hillman's Highway looked very well covered.

[DMC]

No doubt this weekend was great - We rode Hillmans on Friday - it was great. Ducked into the little gullies off skiers right. People were skiing Dutches into the lower snowfields.
Saturday afternoon cleared out and the stars were out very nice at the shelters!
Sunday we climbed up Right Gulley - about 1/4 of the way to the top the snow ended and we had to scramble over rocks a little.
We hiked the summit and did the snow fields and came back down over the headwall which was very nice as well.
Awesome weekend..

[VTrider]

Carter summed it up perfectly, I also was there on 4/29-Sat. What a beautiful Spring day, big blue sunny skies and 'warm'. Everyone today kept on asking how my face got so red (reminder to self: don't forget sunscreen back at campsite)

The snow Saturday was soft, mashed potatoe/creamy like. Waterfall on headwall is partly exposed - crevasses/undermined snow forming, pretty defined in some areas.

All in all, the ravine as usual has a 'great' amount of snow left. Hiking up between Left Chute and the Headwall, crevasses were noticeable - I found myself looking into a couple 'black holes'. - not a comfortable feeling.

And unless you have some serious rock skis/board don't expect to get very far down the sherburne trail (1/2?) - still worth the effort though IMO. If your going this Spring, have fun, be safe, and bring some sunblock too!

-VTrider

[mountainmanbri]

What an awesome day in the Ravine on Sat.! It was my first time up and I had a great time. Many people didn't go because of the forcasted bad weather. But we lucked out and had sunny skies and balmy temps throughout the day. I never knew how heavy my skis and boots really were until you weigh your pack at the trailhead. Lunch rocks was very festive while we basked in the sun and cheered the riders down the mountain. One crazy tubing guy went far up the right gully and had the whole place rocking as he flew at mach one down the slope before bailing near the rocks. Many people around me said they've never seen anyone go that high in a tube in the ravine so we were all impressed. My friends and I trekked up right gulley which doesn't have a whole lot of snow left about 15-20 ft wide. It was a challenge to ski but made down in a few turns and a lot of speed. A few people went off the waterfall off the headwall which looked insane but definitely cool. The hike down Tuckerman's trail was easy, we glissaded down 3/4 of it(in our boots, no skiing on the Tucks trail) with no problem. Definitely doing it again, just have to figure out how to make the pack lighter. Enjoy!