Blue Mtn, Snowy

[doug]

Anyone been up either of these recently? Checking on ice conditions re: need for crampons.

TX

[wanderingspirit]

I was up on Goodnow over the weekend and although I know it is a much smaller mountain than those two conditions there were icy. The little snow that was on the trail had been turned into a hard layer of ice from the sudden freeze.

[redhawk]

Hmmm Maybe I won't do a Mountain after all!~!

[jareth6]

Doug,

I just posted a little Blue Mtn. info in the Indian Pass thread. We did Blue on Tuesday. Not enough snow down low to fully cover rocks and roots, but more as you go up. We used snowshoes the whole way. Nice walk even though we had no views.

Jeff

[Mavs00]

Been up both, neither recently............. Still confident that you would not absolutly need crampons on either peak at any time.

[doug]

Well this was moot in the end. Redhawk, my daughter Eva, and I got to Blue Mt. trailhead on Saturday on some pretty slick roads. It was about 5 degrees with 30-40 mph winds and already 10 inches of snow on the ground. We went a short way and Eva was so cold that we turned back, knowing that the northwest wind was going to be with us the whole way.

We thought about trying it again on Sunday, but the temps and winds were the same or worse, so I took Eva to Oak Mt. in Speculator for her first day of downhill skiing. It was a great success. Blue Mt. still awaits us.

[Boreal Chickadee]

I was waitng to hear how you made out but I'm not surprised you had to turn back. The mountains skunked a lot of people this past weekend. You were in good company.

[Rik]

This is probably useless info at this point but I climbed Blue on Friday (2/24). We used snowshoes the entire way up and down. There was some ice beneath the snow but not bad. I'm sure with Saturday's snow there is plenty to make snowshoes preferable.