June 12, 2011, Rock Mountain

After reading Andy Dappen's great TR for Rock Mountain and the sunny forecast, we decided some skiing in the back yard would be great. We were wishing we had started about an hour earlier as the warm June sun was cooking us as we climbed the switchbacks. Found the snow about 4800 where we ditched the shoes and put on our boots. We followed a bootpack up to the ridge around 5300? and started skinning there. Made it to the false summit of Rock around noon. We decided not to go out to the summit as most of the lines off the summit into the Rock Lake basin were filled with debris. Had a great, almost sloppy descent and was able to ride all the way back to the boots, minus a few short scrambles down the ridge. The switchbacks down were kind of torture, but over quickly. Nice to finally get up Rock mountain, something that has been on my list ever since I moved here! Someday I'll get that west face!

Sorry no pics, it was too bright for the iphone to get any good pics!