May 19, 2007, Esmeralda Basin - Peak 6382

Mountain codgers Eric and John joined me for a trip up to Esmeralda Basin on Saturday.  The weather was surprisingly good, apart from that icy wind on the summit.  The black clouds were piled up on the west side of the Cle Elum River valley, and managed to reach across the valley a few times and envelope the tops of Jolly and Hawkins.  But the clouds lost their momentum and never got as far as the N Fork Teanaway.  It was a good destination for the weather conditions.

We headed up peak 6382.  The basin had patchy snow not far above the parking lot (at 4,200').  We started skinning at ~5,200.  The corn on the SW facing slope on the upper 500' of the mountain was iced over from the cold westerly wind, creating nasty death crust.  Another codger we met on the way up went back for a second helping.  I suspect short-term memory loss, or some other age-related impairment is to blame.  The large SE facing bowl was protected from the icing effects of the wind and provided us with some nice corn skiing.  On the descent into the basin we picked a line to skier's left of our ascent and found nearly continuous snow all the way to 4,600'.

It's melting out very fast below 6,000'.