COLORADO EXTREMES: Pray for a good corn crop

By Hannah Nordhaus, Special to the Rocky

Monday, April 7, 2008

Even for those of us who live for snow, it's sometimes hard to get excited for spring skiing.

It's hard to seek out winter when it's 75 degrees in town and you're wearing shorts and sandals. It's hard to hop in the car and put on all those clothes when the bike and the barbecue beckon.

If you do motivate for a trip to the mountains, there's no guarantee you'll hit the snow right. When a cold spell follows a warm spring day that melts the snow into little granular slush peaks, the snow resembles nothing so much as a cheese grater. Hard to forsake the barbecue for that dubious pleasure.

Even when the weather does cooperate and you get a nice, warm spring day, there's still the problem of timing. Get out before the sun's warmed up the snow and you'll be skiing on frozen slush balls, death cookies, baby heads - call them what you will, you're still better off at the barbecue.

Get out too late or hit the wrong aspect and you'll be skiing calf-deep slush, which is sort of fun as long as you're not averse to face plants and knee injuries. Slush is grabby and inconsistent, slowing you down and speeding you up without warning. Get your skis too far across the fall line and they stop dead while the rest of your body continues on down the hill.

When the snow gets too slushy and you're on a steep slope, you also run the risk of wet slab avalanches, which form when water lubricates the base of the snowpack. In May 2005, this type of avalanche killed a skier on A-Basin's steep Pallavicini terrain - the first in-bounds avalanche fatality in the U.S. in 30 years and an event that surprised almost everybody in the avalanche business. Since then, the patrol has erred on the side of caution, closing its steepest terrain once the real spring warm- up begins.

If you're on your own in the backcountry and don't have the benefit of the patrol's judgment, a rule of thumb is to get off the snow before it gets so moist that you can wring water from a handful of it. If it didn't freeze overnight, it's best to avoid steep slopes prone to sliding, although wet slides can sometimes occur when overnight temperatures have dipped below freezing. The folks at A-Basin tell me they also watch nearby stream flows, which can indicate how much water is flowing through the snowpack and help assess the risk of wet slides.

Death cookies, knee injuries, wet slides - why, in heaven's name, would anybody leave the barbecue for a spell of spring skiing?

For one good reason: If the weather cooperates and you time it right, a run on perfect spring corn snow can be almost as transcendent as an epic powder day.

I say almost because you can't let your skis run with quite the abandon you would in, say, a foot of powder. But corn season also holds one big advantage, at least for Colorado backcountry skiers: You can ski really steep stuff without worrying about avalanches, as long as you're off the slope before it turns to slush.

Spring is the time when you can get deep into the backcountry, accessing trail heads that are snowed in during powder season. When you can climb high peaks and ski forbidding couloirs. Some of my most memorable runs have been in spring - long, steep shots like Crooked Couloir on Mount Audubon, Cristo Couloir on Mount Quandary, Silver Couloir on Buffalo Mountain and Sundance Bowl in Rocky Mountain National Park.

When the sun is shining and you hit that glorious moment when the snow softens to a pliable creamy consistency but hasn't turned to slush, you veritably dance down the mountain, accompanied by the pleasurable rasp of corn snow parting before your skis.

And you're usually down soon after noon - plenty of time still to strap on those sandals and hit the barbecue.

Hannah Nordhaus covers the outdoors and the environment from her home in Boulder.