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!

Wheeler Lake 6/15/13

Because Kelly Flats was still closed, we decided to meet up with Patrol 6 and try opening Wheeler Lake. We followed a ways behind them with a fairly small group. Ryan, Morgan, Chuck, Paul & Suzy, as well as Tyler in his new JK, and Chad's girlfriend brought out her new TJ.

 

The day was moving along without a hitch when we reached the V Notch. Chuck decided to try an interesting line that started on the far left, crossed over in the middle, and finish off with the notch. Turns out he got a little off his line and it put him in an interesting spot on 2 wheels. A quick pull on the winch and we were on out way again.

Just before the mud pits we hit our first snow drift of the day. Plowed through that one no problem and continued on to the mud pits. At this point, patrol 6 had radioed back that there was a very large drift at the sharp turn at the top of bowling ball hill. The didn't have any luck with it, so they were on there way down.

 

We reached bowling ball, and sent up our snow buster... Morgan! Morgan gave it hell, but was not able to power through on his own. Luckily he had just bought a brand new smittybilt land anchor. We busted that out, and after figuring out how to work it properly, Morgan was able to winch himself right up on top of the drift. Ryan followed next, and soon the whole group was on their way up. Tyler left his rig at the bottom because he didn't have a winch, but then one of the Patrol 6 guys wanted to reach the top with us.

We ran into one more drift up on the tundra, but it was hard packed enough for us to stay on top of it and just drive on over to the lake. We snapped some pics, and headed back down to air up.

A couple of us weren't quite ready to head home as it was still early, so we went off to check out some roads by Kite Lake. We found a ton of old mining roads that just crossed all over the mountain and kept climbing. We took as many of the roads as we could before we were eventually stopped by every single one.