16 May, Earl Mountain

glenn_b and a lurker were kind enough to invite me to join them on my first trip on the east side of the pass.  I quickly learned I haven't been doing enough touring, and I'm out of shape.  And it's hotter on this side of the mountains.

We started fairly late up from the Beverly Creek trailhead, crossing the creek as soon as we could, and working up through the trees to the saddle between Earl and the smaller peak to the southeast.  From there, we alternated booting and skinning to the peak. 

We descended down a gully on the west side, where conditions varied from fairly good corn to nasty heavy glop in places.  When it was good, it was very good, but at times I thought my legs were going to go out on me.  The snow looked fairly well consolidated in most places, although there was evidence of recent small slides on SE slopes.

If anyone out there loves ladybugs, there were approximately 5,234,541,345 ladybugs doing things to each other that I can't describe in polite company, literally coating rocks at the summit.