June 15, 2015, Loveland Pass, CO

Loveland Pass is at 11,990' and has plenty of snow on the north side. This a big stop for tourists to get a photo of the Continental Divide sign and to see all the snow. A snowboard group has developed a few jumps and pipes just below the sign area and the hiking/viewing area. We did not see any skiers, just boarders. We put our skies on our packs and followed the ridge trail that was snow-covered part way up. From the summit there is a vast area that has north and east facing bowls. The east slopes have cornices and large sloughs. We climbed to an area that had a great ski line near the ridge. We have been in CO for 3 days visiting friends, and the weather has been variable with passing storm cells. Most mornings are sunny, then the storm clouds arrive with wind, showers and/or heavy rain, thunder and lightening, and possibly grapple or hail. Then the sun comes back out and is followed by another cycle of clouds, etc. We have read that May and June are erratic, and they're not kidding! The lingering snow now is because May had a fantastic powder event.

We were getting ready for our descent when the white cloud formation on the ridge became gray and was coming our way. Within a minute or two it was lightly raining, then we had grapple for 5 minutes, and then the sun came back out. We could see another formation coming our way, so we decided that we better get a move on. The skiing was great corn.  We could have skied to a lower part of the road and hitchhiked back to the van, but the slope became steep forest with a lack of snow where you could see the road. So instead, we enjoyed figure-8ing our way down until we arrived at the trees. You could spends days in this vast area. When we decided to make our way back to our starting point near the CD sign, we found a track that was used when there was more snow. It was a great day. The hardest part was climbing on the dirt path back up the slope to get to the van. A couple of guys were leaving their €œpark€ and we all stopped to get our breath for the short walk. Skiing and skinning are a lot more fun then walking with our gear at the end of a long day. ;)