January 28, 2006, Nordic Pass

Charles was nice enough to send me directions.  Alas, we could not find a trace of his tracks.  There was about a foot of wedding cake icing snow everywhere at the Pass, and it snowed 4 inches of the same stuff during the day.  Well, the short day, as road work closures did not permit us to start until after 12 noon.  Between 2 people, we grunted through the "stuff" to Nordic Pass and then descended the road to Hyak.  The average coverage is plenty deep from Grand Junction to Nordic Pass now; no issues at all with creeks of logs.  We learned to stay close to the telephone pole-like trees as  it was a little less deep there, but stay away from the bent-over loosey trees with suction-like wells.  The brief descent was enjoyable and we never interacted with crust.  The Nordic patrol reported natural and patroller-initiated slides in Rockdale canyon, but we did not see any in Cold Creek.