Easter Skinday on Mt. Ellis

Here is a picture of my backyard. Why show a picture of my backyard? Certainly there's no adventure to be had back there (excluding Ross' trampoline, that is).

Ah, but look closer, dear readers. Off in the distance, directly over the birdbath, Mt. Ellis hovers over our fair city. And you know what? I've never climbed it all the way to the top. Yep, that thing's been tapping me on the shoulder for years, but I've only managed to make it up to its lower summit twice.

It's not like it's inaccessible or hard to climb or anything. Quite the contrary - backcountry skiers regularly ascend its southeastern flank to ski down fluffy, untracked powder. So, this past Easter Sunday, that's exactly what my housemate Ross and I planned to do.



For such an undertaking, one needs very specialized backcountry ski gear: skis with bindings that release at the heels for uphill travel, and adhesive skins to affix to the bottoms for uphill traction. Of course, once you're all decked out with the requisite gear, it's also kind of nice to have some snow. Since it is, after all, April, there were a few patches at the lower elevations that could have used some sprucing up. Here I demonstrate how to cross a creek when you're too lazy to take off your skis. Note the brightly colored outfit - yet another benefit of buying gear in thrift stores!





It took Ross and me two and a half hours to reach the ridge between lower and upper Mt. Ellis. Well, it took me two and a half hours; Ross spends his summers on a Hotshot crew fighting forest fires in the summers, and he's like bionic or something. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind waiting, which he was doing patiently by the time I huffed and puffed my way up the steep skintrack to the ridge.

(Note: If you look carefully past Ross' head, you can make out Mt. Black, which Craig and I climbed two weeks earlier.)



From the ridge it was an easy skin up to the 8,331 foot summit. What a beautiful day! But we couldn't stand around like a bunch of tourons drinking in the view; Easter dinner was scheduled for 5, and we were hungry. So down we went.






Of course, it wouldn't be a Ray outing without at least a little bit of adventure, so it was pretty much mandatory for us to get stuck in a bunch of impassable trees for a while, having to clambor out of deep snow just to get going in the right direction. But that didn't last for long; most of the run was mercifully aided by the laws of gravity, with enough long, open runouts to keep us happy. Of course, the snow was deep and warm and heavy and a bit unmanageable. Really, it was a bit of a struggle to turn in, but hey, I was just happy to be there. We made it home at five o'clock on the dot, got our fill of Easter vittles, and then (with about four glasses of wine in me) I made my counterclockwise circumnavigation of Mr. Boulder (see below). Then I went to bed, with every bone in my body aching.