November 20, 2005, Van Trump Park, MRNP

Greg, Fabien and I parked at the parking lot for Van Trump just around 8:30 on Sunday morning leaving the morning fog behind us.

We were the only car at the parking lot..probably not very surprising since the trail to Van Trump seemed very dry and not attractive compared to the option of skiing from the car at Paradise. We all stepped out and looked around for a while hesitating on whether we shoudld give it a try or revert to good old Muir snowfield.
We saw one TAY car after the other drive past us on the way to Paradise, the best one was JW giving us a classic look of "what the hell are these guys thinking ?".

Since Greg had never been up on Van Trump we decided it would be interesting to give it a try.
We hiked up the trail for about 800 vf before putting the skis on though there was probably enough snow to skin after 400 feet. We followed the trail to Comet falls along a steep flank just above the creek. The snow was already very mushy even though the slope had not been exposed to the sun yet. but it was stable enough for the ascent.

We topped out in the park entrance after a good hour and a half of hiking. Given the tricky conditions furhter down and the high potential for slides as the termperature was rising, we agreed that we had two options: either ski back down right away while snow was still frim enough or continue going up and wait until sunset to ski back down so that the snow would be firmed up again. We decided for the later option.

The hike up in Van Trump park was a lot of fun and very scenic...a welcome change from Muir. After multiple breaks we stopped at 9200 feet and decided so ski back down around 3:30 pm. Snow conditions were variable, at times great, at times bottomless mush.

By the time we reached the risky sections below Comet falls, the sun had already set for a while and snow was firmed up again. We continued skiing in the forest with our headlamps and got back to the car just before 6pm.

A great day in the snow - will post pictures later.