Home > Trip Reports > Diamond Peak, April 21

Diamond Peak, April 21

4/15/12
2633
4
Posted by Timstirling on 4/25/12 1:29am

Climbed 8744ft Diamond Peak in Oregon on Saturday via the SW ridge with an epic ski descent into the SW bowls on perfect spring corn snow.
Had to leave the car at 3900ft due to snow blocking the road. Hike in was about 5.5 miles, 5000ft. Snow was a little soft going up but not too bad, the top 1000ft was hard and icy requiring ski crampons. Stiff breeze at the top but not too bad, temps above freezing, crazy. Chilled on the north face for an hour letting the sun do its work softening the SW bowl.
had lunch with this as a view:





Ski down was amazing, 1-2inches of corn on a hard base:


A long slog back to the car through thigh deep wet unconsolidated mushy snow.

I expect b next weekend one could shave 0.5 miles and a few hundred feet of the course.
PS: I am new to Eugene OR, having spent the last 5 years in Switzerland I am keenly looking for touring partners. I aim go out most weekends, this year I have done Maiden Peak, Odell Butte x2, Malaks mountain, 3 fingered jack, Thielsen and Diamond Peak - looking to do mount McLaughlin, mt Scott, south sister, Hood and perhaps Shasta/st Helens/Adams/Jefferson.

Thanks for the report and welcome to Oregon.

Nice early diamond corn harvest.  Did you go in via Corrigan Lake?  No topo handy here at work, but how far from TH did you park -- seems like it must have been close to two miles, or did you just cut in and up pioneer gulch?.  Was the skinning continuous or patchy on the road approach?

author=Buck link=topic=24595.msg103945#msg103945 date=1335392712]
Nice early diamond corn harvest.  Did you go in via Corrigan Lake?  No topo handy here at work, but how far from TH did you park -- seems like it must have been close to two miles, or did you just cut in and up pioneer gulch?.  Was the skinning continuous or patchy on the road approach?


On Forest road 2149 (which is 1249 on some maps?) I drove up to about 3900ft , which is before it makes a big left turn towards corrigan lake trailhead.  I skinned for 3 minutes before having to walk for 5 minutes until I got to the point in the road where it makes a big left turn. From that point on I never took my skis off, but there were few section of 5-10 feet with no or little snow, I can only imagine these are a little bigger by now. There was almost no snow way form the road at this point, even at 4500ft there wasn't really enough to skin up off the road. Therefore I decided to stick to the forest road as long as possible, I took a right up road 2160, then a left on the small rd 406 which runs parallel with rd 2149 but a little bit higher, it stop just below the 5000ft contour. At about that point there was enough snow, old and dirty, to go up through the forest. I didn't bother trying to get to a trail and just went by GPS and compass, following a ridge line up. I cut across the SW face to the saddle between the false and true summit avoiding having to climb the false summit. If the snow was harder then it would have been wise to keep to the ridge, likewise if the avy danger was higher. As it was the snow was soft but not too soft to cross the face, I actually wondered onto some very snow and had to carefully inch back to something softer to avoid a slide down into the bowl- hence when I got onto the saddle I put on my ski crampons as that last part to the true summit was very hard snow.


This should work:
http://www.hillmap.com/m/ag1zfmhpbGxtYXAtaGRychALEghTYXZlZE1hcBiHoB8M


The lower sections of road had  thin layer of wet snow, it may well have melted through by now allowing you to get closer and a decent 4wd with snow tires may make some progress on it (my Forest with all season  didn't get any traction on the wet snow).  I think my route is preferable to the corrigan lake route which from the maps seems to require a bit more of a traverse to get back to the car after dropping into the SW bowl. I skied mostly fall line (although there were some short flats) to the forest road and glided back to the car.


Definitely recommend at the moment.  The best tour I have done in OR so far and very good in general.

 

Reply to this TR

9752
diamond-peak-april-21
Timstirling
2012-04-25 08:29:34