May 26, 2002, Earl Peak, Bean Creek Basin

We hiked the first thousand feet to where we found continuous snow. The first stream crossing was mercifully well bridged with snow. The snow up in the open basin was nice - pretty firm base under melting corn.

After looking around a bit, we decided to head up to the ridge coming NW off Earl. We had to carry skis across rock for 100 vertical feet right around where we gained the ridge. The snow was rather mushy and a bit hollow here and there on the ridge, but was suprisingly good for turning on the way down. We were pleased to see that we could follow snow to very close to the summit.

Great ski down all the way to the valley floor, with just that one ski carry, though we all sent basketball-sized rollers down the slope that would hurtle along until they broke themselves up.

jim