June 2, 2013, Emmons

Peter and I skied most of the Emmons on Sunday with Mike and Vanessa from Colorado.
The weather at Schurman on Sunday morning did not look so good - 30 knot of winds and a solid cloud cover on the upper mountain. The only other climbers/ skiers at Schurman were Mike and Vanessa who had just driven out from Colorado. The only tracks above Schurman were from Mike and Vanessa who made an "exploratory" climb to about 13k on Saturday. I have to say it was great to be at Schurman and to be able to look up the mountain and only see two ski tracks! Peter and I decided to go regardless at about 6:00. Mike and Vanessa started later but caught up to us on the corridor after we gave up on skinning and put on the crampons due to a breakable crust that had iced over for long stretches making skinning extremely frustrating. None of us had ski crampons but Sunday probably would have been the day for them. We all ended up booting up the route starting at about half-way up the corridor. Booting was not a great option however since there was 12" to 16" of nice powder under the crust. We did try to take turns breaking trail but Mike was clearly the "man" on Sunday and did way more than his share. The route was in great shape and I have to say that climbing with no boot pack or tracks of any kind really added to a beautiful day on the mountain. Punching through the crust took its toll and it was about 2:00 by the time we reached 13,500. We were concerned that snow conditions would turn for the worse as the afternoon temperatures dropped so Peter and I decided to turn and ski. Mike and Vanessa were above us but came to the same conclusion so we all headed down without reaching the top - some regrets about that but I think it was the right call.
we had a great time at Schurman on Saturday. The ranger (Peter) had the flamingos out and the sound system cranked, Peter and Mike  built a slack line with pickets and rescue pulleys and I skinned up to try my new boots (tip: never try new boots on a long ski trip).