Route: Moose Gulch

Team: Ted (solo)

Two weeks after Mt. Democrat and after a recovery from our horrendous sunburns, I decided a solo Bross attempt was in order.

It was a pretty uneventful day. I drove to the trailhead used to access Moose Gulch and started skinning. I managed to make it to the summit plateau on skins, where the heavy winds that the peak regularly contends with transformed the snow into sastrugi, a sort of wind-sculpted, desert/beach sand-patterned look. While lousy for skiing, the nice thing is that snow of this nature is very stable from an avalanche perspective.

This was my first trip to Bross. At the top of the snow, I looked across its wind-scoured summit plateau, so flat I couldn’t discern where the highest physical point resided. A half dozen or so rock walls were built up as windbreaks, and after walking around, I found one with a summit register on the ground. I don’t know if you can ever ski from this point, with so much wind I think the only ski option is to walk across the plateau to the top of Moose Gulch to ski. In linear distance across it might be 200 feet, in terms of vertical feet descended it feels like only a few.

We all know that some 14ers are more interesting than others. The list is set, though, and the less interesting peaks need to be visited as well. Bross is lucky to be on the list; otherwise, very few people would want to ski from this summit. However, I should add that skiing in Moose Gulch can be fun once you’re off the summit.

Mount Bierstadt, would be next up for me. Sorry for the lack of photos from Bross.