May-cember in Rocky Mountain National Park

Saturday May 1st marked what for me this year?  One of the best powder  days of the year.  Insane I know. Welcome to   Colorado weather.  I drove up (with Andrew and Chris) to meet Jon, Jon and Owen at the Bear Lake  parking lot in RMNP to get in some lines of gnar before the snow season finally closed.  The park was filled with Asian tourists in loafers admiring the snow and the scenery around some of the lakes nearby but we quickly strapped up and were on our way to the top  of some chutes right above Dream Lake.  Our first attempts at route finding through the deep snow turned out pretty unsuccessful after we always found ourselves on the bottom side of a pretty gnarly headwall.  After taking a quick ski descent we found a path up and around to hit some sweet pillows in  a gully appropriately called Marioland.  Because we had gotten a late start we really didn’t have much time to rip down a few more runs before a few of the guys had to make it back for a formal dance.  A few herds of elk lingered around the park as we made our departure.  I’ll be back there soon for some backpacking…that is if the 4 feet of snow melts in time.
 
                                                           
                                                                           




-Tyler Grubb