Home > Trip Reports > Jan 28, 2017, - Ruby Mtn

Jan 28, 2017, - Ruby Mtn

1/28/17
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Posted by dbkiker on 1/29/17 4:03am
Great snow above 4k. Pretty rough below 3k. The snow seems like its settled out nicely since the last storm. Slightly wind scoured in a few spots but overall spectacular January riding.

Ruby is in!

You must be the snowboarders we met,  thanks for the beta on the trainwreck, twas good.  I put a few pics and tracks up incase thats helpful to any:  http://www.medicalmooselabs.com/rubymountain

Thank you for the report. Can you elaborate on the initial approach below 3K? Were you able to skin the whole way or was there a lot of uncovered ground/debris? Thanks!

Matt

author=heinzsd link=topic=37746.msg153067#msg153067 date=1485794574]
You must be the snowboarders we met,  thanks for the beta on the trainwreck, twas good.  I put a few pics and tracks up incase thats helpful to any:  http://www.medicalmooselabs.com/rubymountain


I notice that your track leaves the road at the Happy Creek trailhead, which is the same way shown in the Volken guidebook. It's much better to stay along the highway as long as possible instead, to minimize the amount of time and up-down meandering travel in the woods beside the creek, which are not very well suited to hiking or skinning or skiing regardless of snowdepth. Just stay on Hwy 20 until it levels off near 2240 ft, just before it starts going downhill, and then turn right up one of a couple obvious mini-gullies which ascend through the woods, joining the track shown after only a few minutes of travel.

Much easier on both the ascent and descent, swapping a bunch of up-down meandering for an easy straight cruise on the road. The Volken book is pretty good overall, but this is one of several tours in it which has a rather major routefinding error (or at least, it shows a very suboptimal route, when there is a much better option nearby that the trip author was apparently unaware of). Hopefully those errors will be fixed if/when the second edition comes out. Writing accurate error-free guidebooks is really hard, and so I'm not trying to be critical, it's just that I've always appreciated it whenever others have improved my routes and shown me a better option.


author=MGoodwin link=topic=37746.msg153084#msg153084 date=1485804257]
Thank you for the report. Can you elaborate on the initial approach below 3K? Were you able to skin the whole way or was there a lot of uncovered ground/debris?


+1.
Would love to know current snowdepth at the gate and in the woods up to the 3400 ft clearing.


Good call out Amar, we came out as you described, though probably not as early as we could have.  Have those tracks too, but on the map it's obvious what you mean. Below about 3500 was covered with limited sharks, but certainly some fallen tree features. . I'd guess guess 2-3' but pretty rock hard and covered with tree debris. Skied car to car. But certainly more survival skiing in the lower trees.  Don't think I took any pictures lower down.

On side note, we ventured toward hidden peak but turned around about 8 miles into the road, our high clearance jeep could have gone further, but it was getting to about the end and had Ruby as the back-up. Be curious if anyone's driven further. 1-1.5' on the road at the point around 1400'

author=MGoodwin link=topic=37746.msg153084#msg153084 date=1485804257]
Thank you for the report. Can you elaborate on the initial approach below 3K? Were you able to skin the whole way or was there a lot of uncovered ground/debris? Thanks!


Coverage is great down low. It was rock hard starting below 2600 ft however from the thaw/freeze from last week and not even the heat of the day on Sat helped to make it tolerable.

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jan-28-2017-ruby-mtn
dbkiker
2017-01-29 12:03:23