April 30, Mount Angeles orbit

I went straight up from the 15 mile marker: only small patches of skin snow the first 1000 ft. so I had to carry. I then skied to the bottom of the NW-N gully, and climbed down to the 4600-4700 flats negotiating unpleasant terrain which made for slow going (at one point I cliffed out at the top of a waterfall, had to scramble back up on rotten snow, then bushwhacked and climbed down a smaller waterfall a little bit to the East). There doesn€™t seem to be an easy way of way of crossing over from the NW to the N gully except maybe much higher up (something I am yet to explore).  From the 4600 bottom (across from the prominent red rock formation on the Ennis Creek divide), I skinned up along the Heather Park route to the 5800 notch and had to carry the last few hundred feet because my skins got thoroughly wet that even the crampons wouldn€™t hold them in place on steeper terrain. Another short carry took me over the Ennis watershed to the NE gully: it had the best snow (hard supportive crust) which made the skin-up to Victor Pass easy. Save for a few hundred skiable feet near the top, descent to the Switchback trailhead was a mixture of brown and rotten snow: more carry. The whole job took me a little over 8 hours: a pleasant excursion but it did involve a lot more carry than I had expected. There is no easy way left to get to the goods on the north side any more: April heat has pushed the season at least half a month ahead. N