Hurd Peak

We decided to ski Hurd Peak in Roman's van on the way to the Eastern Sierra. It was about 10PM and we had barely left the Bay Area. This left us arriving at the South Lake trailhead at 3AM. After much debate we ended up sleeping in the parking lot for about an hour.

At 4:30AM jetboils were bubbling with coffee and Carleton was cracking the whip. The approach to Hurd Peak started on the same path as the hike into the Middle Kings and it was nice to be on it with less gear, if less sleep. The group split up in the first 20 minutes with Roman and Carleton going one way and me, Scott and Josh going the other.

As it happened my group chose poorly. The skinning was technical almost the entire way and I was happy to have installed ski crampons the day before. We even climbed an unnecessary knoll and had to hike down 400 feet to get back on track.

By the time we arrived at the main couloir Roman and Carleton were halfway up. We transitioned as fast as we could b/c the corn softness was approaching wet slide territory. It was not without bitterness that I saw Carleton and Roman hooting and skiing past unleashing thick wet sprays of snow upon us.

When I made it to the end of the snow at about 12.5k feet I climbed as far as I could w/o protection and photographed Scott and Josh topping out. The turns down were steep, soft and continuous. And the bitterness at splitting up quickly disappeared when we met up w/ them at the apron. The crankiness however did not. I had a splitting altitude headache and actually suggested that we take a nap in the snow for a while.

We opted to ski all the way to the lake which involved a long scree hike in ski boots. I wanted to cry at the end. I'm not sure I've ever bonked before but this was close. When we got to the lot we took turns drinking beer and sleeping on the asphalt. With our lines on Hurd Peak and potential future lines clearly visible we had a hell of an amphitheater in which to bask. And bask we did. It was going to be a good w/e.

Slideshow or gallery: