May 20, 2006, Earl Peak

As my friend Nick C accurately accessed, early Saturday morning was a perfectly nice day to take our skis out for a walk in the rain.  The hiking trail was mostly free of snow up to the first creek crossing.  We chose to go up the ridge rather than cross the creek, so we shot straight up to the ridge and followed it to the top of Earl PK.  Snow was firm on the ridge so we booted up the entire way.  It pretty much misted and rained the entire way and we were both soaked inside and out from the effort. 

The sun started poking thru the clouds once on top so we hung out for an hour or so and dried out.  The radiational heating effect was amazing despite the fact the cloud cover was still there.  Within 45 minutes or so the thinning layer fog and mist turned to blue skies.  The timing couldn't have been better as we stepped in to skis and headed down the SW aspect from the top.  Conditions were very nice from the top to the pass that separates Earl from point 5600.  We then skied from the top of the summer hiking trail at the col, down to the creek.   Conditions here were also nice and all told we enjoyed 1900 VF of decent skiing.  We managed to avoid any rock hazards lurking just beneath the thinning coverage, but that won't be the case for long.

We skied and traversed thru the trees down to about 4400 feet or so, and booted the rest of the way back.  Met a couple coming up the trail and they gave us the creek crossing tip of the day-  there's a small island about 50 yards down stream from the proper trail crossing.  Water here was maybe a foot deep and not nearly the raging torrent found upstream. 

The day ended with blue skies and warm temps-  Nice tour now, but Earl's days are numbered.