mark weissinger

Moab

Geyser Pass rd. -front country tour general report-

General tour observation. Conditions are changing rapidly AS I sub!it this general observation. Copied from message sent to LUNA group email. I went on a solo skin up the Geyser Pass rd. It was approximately a 4-hour tour (a four hour tour) leaving the winter trail head at 11.00. I skinned up the road to Geyser Pass, then did one lap on the upper loop. Conditions were fine for classic, skate and fat bikes. There were fat bike tracks to about the gold basin turn off, then some old (barely discernible) tracks continuing on up. The track was still packed and only a few times did my pole push through the snow up high, but at the edge of the groomed so not surprising. In spots, the vacated windblown snow exposed corduroy even in the upper nordic loop. It snowed a bit during the late morning hours, graupel-ly at best and wind was breezy to gusty; those specific data are on the snowtel site. My tracks were pretty well filled in and indiscernible by the time I was back to the cattle guard and the Clark Lake TH. Snow was drifting onto the road producing mounds and piles which will warrant a pack-down and the Ginzu's tines/rake for cutting down to a more level bed the next time folks head up. I saw one pick-up headed down (Matt H?) as I was going up prior to the Squaw springs TH, and saw no one the rest of the day. I saw 9 piles of dog poo, 7 between the parking lot and the flats before the backcountry short cut. *grumblegrumble* THings are certainly changing up there as I type, so whoever gets the freshies tomorrow will have a story to tell!!

Low

Considerable