Epic Snow at Wolf Creek

By Carson Bennett, 1-14-08

	Caption: Fresh Tracks in a Wolf Creek Glade

Wolf Creek, Colorado – consistently the “mostest and the bestest” snow in Colorado. With an average annual snowfall of 465 inches (nearly 39 feet) Wolf Creek is a top destination for alpine and cross-country skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers, and snowshoers from Colorado and surrounding states.

Why does Wolf Creek receive so much snow, and so consistently? It has to do with the shape of the San Juan Mountains at Wolf Creek Pass. The San Juan Mountains are the first major obstacle subtropical Pacific storms encounter on their way across the southwestern states. The warm air rises quickly when it hits the San Juans, and as it rises it cools. Since cold air can hold less moisture than warm air, the storms dump precipitation as they make their way up and through the funnel-shaped 10,850 foot high Wolf Creek Pass. Basically, Wolf Creek Pass was designed with powder-junkies in mind.

Wolf Creek has already enjoyed more snow than usual this season. Last week the ski area reported eighty inches in seven days. Total snowfall at Wolf Creek so far this season (283 inches) exceeds Keystone by 150 inches, Breckenridge by 140 inches, and Vail by 83 inches, to name but a few. A cashier at the Conoco on the edge of Pagosa Springs told me she hadn’t seen snow like this in forty years. The Pagosa Springs Sun reported on January 10 that, between the fifth and sixth of this month, nearly five feet of wet, heavy snow fell on parts of Archuleta County. Wolf Creek Pass itself was closed for four days while the Colorado Department of Transportation and avalanche control crews blasted and cleared more than fifty snow slides, “32 of which breached U.S. 160 and buried the roadway, in places, under 16 feet of snow.”

What did the recent storm mean for the ski area? After CDOT crews reopened the pass, it meant some of the best ski days in Wolf Creek history. I was lucky enough to head up this last weekend, and reveled in knee-deep powder all day…on every run...for three days in a row. Granted, the most popular runs were packed down pretty quickly, but whenever I hiked the ridge, or took one little turn off of a packed-powder trail into the trees on either side – pure bliss. Powder to my ankles, to my knees, to my waist in some places (and up to my eyeballs whenever I took a digger).

If it’s snow you want, my friends, Wolf Creek is your destination.