Stardate 2016.129

A Grand Mesa Birthday
Snowcatcher and I spent a heart-filled birthday and Valentine's Day on Colorado's West Slope. We spent Snowcatcher's birthday on the Grand Mesa and then spent the evening in a rose petal- and candle-filled room. Our intention was to ski Sunday as well. However, stormy conditions on the passes had us heading home a bit early. Following are some pics from the weekend under a big sky at 10,600 feet in elevation. In the following pic, a pickup in the upper left can be used for scale. Albeit the snowpack has settled a bit, depths stilled averaged 4 to 5 feet.




Groomed trails exist for classic cross-country skiing and skate skiing. Off trail skiing abounds too.



The Mesa having been warm and without fresh snow for a week or so, existing snow was beginning to take on spring conditions a month early. This will change; it's still February. Our big month for snow accumulation is March. Nonetheless, as seen below (blocky fracture of snow), there was a bit of firnspeigel (sun crust) developing.




... and baby blue was the color of her eyes.
Baby blue like the Colorado skies...
-George Strait




A heart for two!




The Flake Master at work!





Pinwheels can result when dry snow (cold winter snowpack) becomes wet (melt) for the first time. Pinwheels are more common farther into late-winter/spring when the snowpack is taking on spring-thaw conditions and becoming saturated. Pinwheels also are called "rollerballs" or "snow snails". They indicate a good time NOT to be on steep slopes. We easily stayed off steep slopes this trip.






That's it for this round. Check back. I always have some sort of adventure to share.

Adios

Stardate 2016.036

The Grand Mesa Is Quite Grand

My secret cache from the previous post is Grand Mesa. It towers above my home town of Grand Junction, Colorado. It often collects massive amounts of snow, and this may be one of those years. Snow depth during our visit was well over 4 feet.



For Day Two, we journeyed back to the top of Grand Mesa for another round of cross-country skiing. We parked at the Nordic Center at Skyway, which is on the western lip of Grand Mesa. The top is a relatively flat area full of subalpine parks, meadows and lakes dispersed throughout a forest of Engelmann spruce. The Skyway elevation ranges between 10,600 and 10,750 feet.



A person could do some backcountry skiing here, but not too much in the Skyway area, considering it's flat, with no downhill reward for hard skinning up to a summit or ridgeline. Being a Nordic center, most of the trails have been groomed for basic cross-country skiing, skate skiing or classic cross-country skiing in machine-groomed snow tracks. Moreover, you can still ski off-trail if desired.



Grand Mesa is billed as the largest flat-topped mountain in the world. That's a pretty big statement, and I don't know if it's true or not; there are a lot of big mesas around the globe. Moreover, I'm not sure if there's an "official" dividing line between mesa and much larger plateau.



Moons ago Grand Mesa was born from basaltic flow of a shield volcano. Basaltic flows capping Grand Mesa are up to 400 feet thick. The summit area is 800 square miles of rarified air at an average elevation 10,000 feet. Leon Peak is the highest point on Grand Mesa, touching the sky at 11,234 feet. Did I mention lots of fluffy snow? We enjoyed intermittent flurries and sun. Enjoy the pics.




Notice the animal tracks that are afloat over the rolling sub-alpine terrain.




We played hide and seek with the sun all day.




The small clearing might be home to a pond in hiding.




The northern rim of Grand Mesa is in the clouds (pic taken from the 9,600-foot contour).




To the northwest, late afternoon light is washing the flanks of the Roan Plateau.




That's it for this set of Grand Mesa pics.
I'm sure I'll find something else to post; stay tuned...

Adios