May 26, 2007, Goat Mountain

Evidently conditions had changed considerably since Tim Place's experience a week earlier. You can now drive almost to the first culvert washout. Unfortunately (or fortunately as it turned out) you can not ski from there or even from the switchbacks. We decided to follow the road until we were almost in direct line with the gully. Half of our six member group put skis here and the other three continued on foot to the valley floor. The former all had problems with their skins not wanting to stick on. My son lost his skins a half dozen times and finally resorted to post holing, Nick was able to tape his skins on and mine hung in enough to shuffle forward.

  We left Gabe behind after our lunch break and climbed to the ridge line. Unfortunately a cloud joined us as we reached the ridge ruining our views and making the first hundred feet or so of the descent difficult. As to be expected with temperatures in the 50's, the snow was heavy and slow. To add insult to injury, pollen had applied brakes to our skis. By the time that we had skied down the gully and the road almost back to the switchbacks, our bases were covered with an ugly tarry, gummy muck. I hated placing them against my pack for the mile or so walkout to the car. Still it was good day out.