Elk Passes Loop-AKA Le Tour De Couch
Trip date: Tuesday Mar 08, 2022
Submitted by SteveR
Particpants:
Solo
Discussion:
Crack of noon start from Elk Pass TH with about 6 cm new snow over old grooming and very few others about, looping through West Elk Pass around to Elk Pass via the highline route over the ridge to East Elk Pass, then back via Tyrwhitt-Patterson Meadows etc. A nice afternoon of variable weather for this very scenic meadow (mostly) tour. Beyond the fairly well traveled route to couch HQ at West Elk, I broke trail following an ephemeral, often snowed over and blown in track that I am pretty sure was put in by "the man" Ma Sid himself- south to the power line, up the logging cut, and along a series of meadows and treed terrain over to East Elk Pass, where I picked up Helen and Co's refresh of the track from yesterday. Off trail travel is excellent right now- very supportive with about 15 cm ski penetration on my 68-55-63 mm light touring skis. Although I had skins along, they stayed in the pack as it was easy to set a wax track up the logging cut in places where the existing single track made by a descending skier doing the loop in the opposite direction (Martin?) got a little too steep for Blue wax. Back on the groomed trail at Tyrwhitt, I found the sometimes wobbly tracks and slow feeling chewed up ungroomed snow a bit tedious. That is about to change- I got back to the trailhead at the same time as Big Tex was being pulled into the parking lot, Pisten Bully onboard!