April 12, 2008, Mt Lassen NE Face

I left work a little early on friday and headed straight to Lassen with my roommate. After spending the night in a parking lot we awoke to a cloudless, windless day. We parked at the devistated area, as far as the road was plowed, and started up at about seven. The snow was firm and made for easy skinning, evidence of the cold temperatures overnight. Our plan was to ascend the north ridge to the summit. After reaching the top of the steeper part of the ridge it was about 10:45 and the snow was looking quite ripe. We made the democratic decision to forget about the summit and ski down from where we were. It turned out to be the right choice because the snow on the east facing slopes were very thick and watery, but luckily the more northerly aspects were corned quite nicely. Made nice wide sweeping turns for 4000 feet back down to the car and we were sipping cold cervaza's by noon.