Snoopy’s Collar, The Citadel, Bakersville, Colorado
With the forecast looking perfect with highs in the mid 40s and sunshine, Mike and I were looking to find a fun line with a solar aspect to ski. We also had a stable snowpack and an avalanche forecast that was “Low” across the board. The previous spring, we had headed up The Citadel to ski Snoopy’s Backside so we decided to check out the other side of the mountain and ski what is called Snoopy’s Collar.
We parked at the trailhead near the i70 Loveland exit and headed towards Dry Gulch. The first 2/3 of a mile was slightly downhill so I was able to start with my skins off and ski the first part of the tour. I then transitioned near the gate, and we started heading uphill. We followed the bottom of the drainage up to about 11,500 which is where we cut off to the right and headed up towards the ridge that we would take to the top of the line. When we got to the ridge, it was lacking snow in a few spots and we found ourselves walking for a couple hundred feet. The ridge was snow covered higher up which allowed us to skin to the top of the line.
Once at the top, we transitioned and it was pretty straightforward to pick the line we wanted to ski. We timed the run to have some nice, soft corn conditions. On the way out, we put our skins back on for a short bit to regain the ridge and ski an east facing bowl back down to the bottom of the gully and then went back out the same way we came in. I really enjoyed this line and would like to come back to this basin in the future to ski some additional lines.
Total Stats: 8.1 miles, 2700 ft of elevation gain
