Bedal

Definitely the best birthday week I've had in many years: Ruby on Sunday, a short nighttime Alpental tour on Tuesday, Bedal on Saturday, and a whole lot of sunshine!

Yesterday, Silvia, Aaron, and I went up to build some character and maybe ski Bedal. We found sloppy snow down low, almost purely wind-affected snow up high, maybe only five blowdowns to navigate, amazing views, solitude, and blue skies.

Parked at the third switchback of FS 4096 and started up the climbers' trail by headlamp at 7 AM. I expected worse from the trail (brushy/hard to follow/blowdowns) so was pleasantly surprised. I started out in my ski boots but Silvia and Aaron left their shoes/boots at around 3300' and we continued on foot (mushy posthole city) along the first boulder field and then transitioned to skinning above that. 

We chose a non-icy and non-exposed way up the crux steep section at 5k' switching to boots with crampons. There was some cleaning/wallowing and then just careful steps in unconsolidated snow around some rocks using inverted ski poles (hmm, a light axe would've probably been wise...).

On the north side of things, Silvia led a good route winding up the wind-affected landscape around exposed rocks up to the NE ridgeline. From there, in the sun (hey, there's a patch of ripening corn here!) and gusty winds, we skinned up until the last 30' or so, booting up the ridge proper. Summitted around 12:30. Silvia had hiked up in the summer, and I think she must be one of very few people to summit Bedal twice in the same year! Summit views were fantastic, especially Sloan! We skied down the ridge and found a sheltered spot to take our lunch break, then traversed as much as possible to get a bit of fall line skiing before heading back west. 

Downclimbing the short steep step went fine. We got one short pitch of some dry and non-wind-affected snow and then a fair bit of wet snow, low-coverage tree skiing on the descent... and finally, booting down the last bits of even less coverage, steeper, and crappy boulder field with weak snow/lurking holes. Fun!

Got back to the car at 4 safe and sound. Another good day 😃