Went up there on Nov 23/24. We did Curtains on Carter Mtn. It's in real nice shape but a lot of thigh deep sugar snow between pitches. We put chains on (have a 2 wheel drive pickup) to get up there...esp nice coming down because it's kind of steep in places with drop-offs...road snow packed and icy but may get better with warm temps.
Drove up S Fork and things aren't real great up there. The south-facing climbs are mostly not there. Main Vein looks climbable but thin. The north facing stuff looks pretty thin for the most part. The first two pitches of Mean Green aren't even there and High on Boulder/Moonrise are pretty narrow and thin looking. Bozos is not very beefy, Ice Fest looks somewhat okay and surprisingly the Moratorium actually didn't look too bad. Several of the hard climbs either side of the Moratorium have touched down. Go figure.
It has warmed up since Sunday so all that could be history by now.
Aaron has updated conditions at coldfear.com based on first-person observations from Sunday 12/8. Lots of S facing climbs have come in and the N side continues to go off. Special notes: Mean Streak is hanging in so get this rarely-formed classic while it's there, P1 of Main Vein is fat, Ice Fest is big but bottom is spicier than it looks from the S Fork road - scope it with binoculars before you head over expecting a cruise, Joy After Pain and Sendero are hyooooj, Mean Green P1 is there and big but massively dirty so it doesn't look like it's there - Mean Brown this year :)
Climbed in Cody this last WE. Conditions were not that great: more like late season conditions, really. VERY dry. Only a little sugary snow on the ground; makes approaches easier on the flats and harder on the steeps. North facing routes were either wet (HOB, MoonRise, 2nd pitch of the Moratorium) or sublimating. Moratorium is super fat and easy. That route two flows over to the left looked good too. Other routes nearby looked very dry and sublimated. Scoped Icefest from the road but bottom looked sketchy/sublimated. Mean Green is so brown this year it's hard to even see the ice from a distance, but it looked like all pitches might be in. Most anything that gets any sun is mostly melted/rotted out. Ice Nine was there but smaller than usual.
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