Gulf of Slides 12/8/24

Above: Booter? Hardly know 'er!

Trail: Gulf of Slides Ski Trail

Notes: 2-3" of fluff made for another round of solid turns in the Notch this morning. Gulf of Slides was significantly less tracked out than the Sherb so said 2-3" felt like much more up top. We opted for the skin track shortcut which was a tad brushy but still easy to navigate. This area of the trail on the way down was a little bony with brush sticking out and some water bars to keep an eye out for. Thanks to the GBA crew there are some nice pockets of tree skiing that are cleared out on the corners of the trail.

Beta: The bottom two river crossings are frozen over and crossable on skis. The larger one at the bottom of the drop has a nice row of logs instead of the one skinny log from years prior making it much easier to cross. Snow was coming down so visibility was limited, preventing us from peeking into the slides themselves. I'd expect this week's warmup to expose some more running water, making the lower half of GOST a bit tricky. Winter 1.0 is going to hang around for a couple more days though, get out there if you haven't yet!

- Greg

The upper pitches had good coverage and quite a few little jumps to enjoy

One of the lower crossings with the wider log bridge

The first river crossing frozen but thin

Low vis prevented a good look into the slides

Chris Wilke & Zoe McKenzie skinning up the trail