April 23, 2005, Sahale

Standard gate closing at the paved steep switchback at mile 21.5. Couple of big debris piles and some buckled pavement make it unlikely one will be able to drive to ending th and have enough skiable snow this year. Easy access with minimal brush getting to lower basin for now. Two armies of snowshoers heading down from the pass as I was going up even with early start--numerous tent platforms below the pass. The arm starting to give way to rocks and bare spots but definitely continual to top of glacier. For summit baggers: reasonable rock scramble to summit as the snow seems to end higher than normal. The summit snow finger off to the right looked rotten. Top was soft but not bad, probably due to diffused sun (which with the world class views made the climb quite pleasant). Descended slightly skier's left off top to avoid the 40+ roll and lots of had lots of grins. J'burg had mucho crash and bash of breaking ice to entertain. Below 7000 got fairly mushy but the final few thousand being more northwest helped. Best corn was in lower basin. Like many other locations, it will probably incur too much melting before consolidated corn up higher. Get it while you can.