Diamond Peak, West Ridge

November 24, 2005

Skiing is a strange activity. When I don't get to ski, I want to ski. But when I do get to ski, I want to ski a whole lot more. After a three day week I was ready for more turns. I flew down to my parents' house in Oregon on Wednesday, allowing my dad and me to continue our yearly tradition of going skiing on Thanksgiving.

The high pressure front was supposed to collapse Thursday evening, but the weathermen were off by twelve hours. The skies were cloudy when we arrived at the Diamond Peak trailhead. Hoping that it wouldn't rain on us, we set off through the dry woods, carrying our skis. After half an hour of pleasant hiking, we hit continuous snow. While it was never more than two feet deep, skinning was much better than slogging. We meandered around through the woods, and gained the ridge. Many, many obstacles made for slow going, and when there were fewer rocks, the snow became rock hard, making skinning very difficult. After sliding out a few times we put the skis on our backs and continued on foot. The snow was hard enough that crampons would not have been out of place.

The higher we got on the ridge, the stronger the wind became. Storm clouds were moving in quickly, and when we got to the false summit, Bailey and Theilsen were socked in. We opted out of the ridge traverse to the true summit, and put our gear on as quickly as possible. The clouds caught us and it started snowing uphill, convincing us to beat a hasty retreat down the icy snow. We chattered our way down, and even made some enjoyable turns. Resting was a chore, as there was no way to kick a platform in the snow; you had to be on edge nonstop.

After losing some elevation the clouds moved on, and the sun poke out, so we ate lunch. The sun had softened the snow, so we enjoyed the corn. The skiing through the woods was interesting due to very low coverage. A patch of slush caught me by surprise and forced me through a gap between trees that was just slightly narrower than my shoulders.

At some point we took our skis off, thinking that the snow had come to an end. We were wrong, and we slogged through snow for half an hour, wondering where the hell we were. Then we ran into the road, and figured it out. A mile and a half of walking down the road brought us back to the car. Half an hour later, it promptly started raining. Our timing was good after all.