March 13, 2015, Mt Mastiff, Nason Ridge

Long overdue since my 1st attempt decades ago; only thing I remember is skiing brush near the highway.  I wasn't sure about the snow pack condition there, but it seemed now is better than later given our early Spring.  I got a semi-willing partner with a low expectation, Radka's response was "Yea, it's gonna rain all weekend so may as well get wasted.

The road up to Merritt Lk TH is mostly bare with short patches of snow blocking some cars.  We started hiking a mile on the road at 9am, switched to skinning at ~4600'.  Both Merritt and Lost lakes are still frozen solid except some recent snow.  We followed the std ski route up via NE ridge to Mastiff summit.  We had talked about continuing to Howard, but decided we'd need 2 more hours would be nice and save that for a next time.

Of course, what shouldn't happen happens when one doesn't want it to happen.  Radka's Dynafit binding broke again, her 256th time (maybe ~10th?).  We were 50' below the summit, and once there she made yet another FB report of the binding failure.  I'm sure she'll post it on TAY sometime.  So we turned around me skiing on 2" of packed newish, she kick-turning down with skins on. 

I was a bit surprised we needed headlamps out for hiking out.  My second time in a row in a single week!  Anyway, skiing is nice up there and it would be really nice to spend a lot of time on Haward.







Mt Howard:




Mt Mastiff:


More pics here.