June 12, 2011, Vesper Peak

Sunday was a busy day on Vesper between our ski party of six plus two more parties of 2, and a few mountaineering types out to ruin pristine slopes with butt glissade trenches. The road is open to the trail head. A mile or so of bare trail with a couple "attention getting" creek crossings lead us up into the basin below Sperry Peak. From the bottom of the basin ~3200 we skinned up on continuous snow and rather remarkable accumulations of old avy debris. The route up to Hedley pass was well filled in with snow and though a bit intimidating at the top, the soft snow later in the afternoon made it a good ski. Ski crampons are good to have now heading up to Hedley, and even then most of us (except the amazing Mr.Dale) decided to boot up the steepest part. The slopes from Hedley to the top of Vesper offered good though "not quite corn" skiing, but in the coming weeks it will likely get there.