May 15, 2010, Navaho Pk, North Side Loop

Brenda and I have been going up to the Stafford Crk area in early May for several years now, usually for a weekend camp at our favorite horse camp at 4200'. It  has a great fire pit and usually a clear patch of ground for the tent. This year we decided to forgo the camping and try for a long day up Navaho and down the north side then complete a circuit over the gap between the Three Brothers/Navaho and back up the gap between Navaho and Little Navaho. We've eyed that 1500' line down the north side of Navaho several times but conditions  were never right, and we never had the nerve to commit. And we've always wanted to complete the circuit.

Anyway, snow line is quite high this year. No skinning until after the creek crossing at 4800'. Above that there's really a lot of snow. Many bare spots are much better covered than in past years. Snow is still not corn, but not as uncosolidated as what I found last weekend in Bean Crk. We ended up skiing down Navaho from the arm just below the actual summit. We were a bit afraid of setting a slide on the steeper summit face, since the snow there still had newish consistancy, and temps were fairly warm. Skiing wasn't too bad. A bit gloppy and slow, but turns were pretty good. Did get a small hisser going on a steeper pitch, and I wish it had been a bit bigger to clean things out. We traversed over towards the Brothers/Navaho gap from around 5600'. This back side to Little Navaho basin was all new to us. Lots of great looking lines from Navaho ridge back there, and the corn is almost there. Downhill from this gap then a climb up to Little Navaho and a final downhill to dirt, had us hiking out at an embarrassingly late hour.