Red Cone opening 6/30/13

The reports coming from the Forest Service were very good, and it looks like we actually may have waited just a little too long to open Red Cone. However, the timing was still good. Dillon Ranger district opened up Saint Johns, and the Middle Forks on Friday, and we came through to open Webster and red Cone on Sunday. We had a very large group which was very welcomed as we had some trail repair to complete. The rangers on the South Platte side had asked us to remove some trees off of the fence on their side, so we started there with the chainsaw.

On the way up the trail, we only encountered a couple trees across the trail, which was way better than the 8 we had in the first mile last year. We reached the rock garden in no time.

Above treeline, there was no signs of snow on the trail. Once we reached the top, you could easily see the giant snow cornice still covering the return route of Webster Pass.

Morgan headed down the hill first so he could check out just how big the drift n Webster was. It turned out to be MASSIVE!

There was no way we could get Webster opened on that side, so we continued down the Montezuma side where we had some fencing to repair.

We stopped for lunch at the turn off for radical hill just as the rain came pouring in. Once it cleared up, a number of us headed to Radical to play in the snow a bit as we hadn't encountered any all day.

We hit some large snow fields as the rain started to roll in again, so we packed up and headed out leaving the gate open behind us. Thanks again to everyone who helped out that day!

Red Cone scouting 4-13-13

Patrol 14 headed up to Red Cone to close the seasonal runoff gate and check out what conditions were like. As opposed to last year, we didn't run into any downed trees, but we did run into a ton of snow. The snow started on Hall Valley Road and just got deeper as we headed up the trail.

The snow was the very fine sugar type and not the sticky wet spring stuff that allows you to grab traction. After 1.1 miles, we made it to the creek crossing, where we just couldn't make it any farther without a ton of work. As this was a scouting run, there was no need to spend the whole day out here shoveling and winching.

We turned around and decided to check out Webster Pass.

The snow over on Webster was even deeper and finer than what we had run into on Red Cone. At one point Chuck got stuck and Dave tried to pull him out and just sunk himself. Ryan then hooked up and took himself down into the trees. Apparently 2 Jeeps weren't enough to pull Chuck out. So out came the winches.

Chuck showed us a new technique I had never seen before, called the sling shot. If you can't tell from the pic, Ryan's winch was first connected to a tree in front of him, then to a tree straight back from that one, and then back to Ryan's rear end. It not only pulled the Jeep back on the trail, but it pulled it perfectly straight in the direction we were headed.

Again, we only made it 1.1 miles when the snow became too deep to continue. Looks like this year we will have to wait till June to open Red Cone. Shooting for June 29th.

Red Cone Opening 2012!

On May 28th, Patrol 14 finished off our Memorial Weekend with an attempt to open Red Cone for the season. On the SouthEast side of the pass, the trail was very dry, but the patrol ran into many downed trees. Luckily there were a plethora of chainsaw this day.

Once we reached the top, the patrol had to install a new Red Cone summit sign because the old one disapeared last year.

On the northwest side of the pass, we ran into a ton deep snow! Luckily we had a lot of hands that day, so we had no problem shoveling our way through the deep white stuff. The first drifts was about 4 feet deep and 30-40 yards long. We made it through in about an hour. As we crept closer to the river crossing, we encountered a serious of 8-10 foot drifts. These were very interesting drifts. There would be an 8 foot hump of snow in front of you, but 15 feet from where you were standing, there was dirt again. Then 20 yards down the trail was another 8 foot hump. We shoveled out the first drift, but after that we just winched and drove over.



The trail is now open and ready for wheelers state, and nation wide!!