Idaho Summits Spring Outing - Peak 10941

Friday evening saw us hook up with the Idahosummits.com crew in Hailey for the 2011 Spring Outing.  The original plan was to climb North King Mountain in the Lost Rivers, but with the current amount of snow in the camping area and the weather forecast, a command decision by Dan was made to switch to Peak 10941 in the Boulders.

After a leisurely dinner of Thai Food in Hailey, a rough night sleeping on a condo floor and coffee from Hailey Coffee Company we were off at 8:30AM.  In attendance were Dan, Margo, Steve, Dave, Alex, Nathan, Jacob, Dylan and I.  There were four skiers (Dylan, Nathan, Steve, and me) along with five trudging up in snowshoes.

We started off with snow at the highway in partly cloudy skies. This was the view I had for the entire ski/climb up - every one's rear ends.

The snow conditions going up weren't too bad, a bit icy in spots causing some minor slipping and sliding. Here, Dylan and I take a quick breather.

Once we were above treeline, at approximately 9800 feet the snow conditions as well as the steepness increased.  This necessitated Dylan, Steve, and I to remove our skis and trudge up in our ski boots.  Nathan, who was so far out of my sight by this time apparently continued to ski his way up to the summit!

Dylan trudging up

The crew above treeline with the summit to the right

Yours truly with Galena Peak in the background

For some reason I was really having a difficult time this morning.  Don't know if it was the Thai food or the altitude, but I was struggling.  Dylan, being the good son that he is, hung back with me so I had someone to take pictures of.  It wasn't long before rocks started showing through the snow on the ridge and at this point Dylan and Steve had switched to crampons.  I had inadvertently left mine back in the car (bone head move!)and because of this, I took care in placing my steps.  We didn't run across anything that seemed too dangerous Mom, so no need to worry.

Nearing the top.

Once on top, we had spectacular views of all the surrounding snow covered peaks.  Since there wasn't much wind to speak of and the sun was shining we all took a leisurely break for lunch.  That is all of us but Nathan.  After tagging the summit he dropped down to a saddle and headed over to tag Cierro Cento and Easley Peak.  This peak was enough climbing for me and I was eagerly anticipating the ski down.  Our plan (Steve, Dylan, and I) was to drop down to the saddle between 10941 and Cierro Cento and ski the bowl.


heading down to begin skiing


Once down to the bowl we transitioned to our skis and took off one by one.  The snow was OK, not too good and not too bad.  About what you could expect in mid afternoon on April 30th.  It was tough for Dylan to try tele turns with the mixed bag of conditions, but he fought through it.

Looking back up at our tracks.

As it worked out we were able to ski all the way down to the highway.  This made for an excellent decent since we didn't have to put up with all the typical jarring on the knees.  About halfway through our descent Nathan came cruising through the trees to join up with us other skiers.


A view of the summit


This turned out to be a fantastic trip, great peak, great weather, and great friends.  All told we did close to 7 miles, though half of that was skiing down, and climbed 3800 feet.  Can't wait for the fall outing.

Link to Margo's trip report: http://mslasky.blogspot.com/2011/05/85107-peak-10941-idaho-summits-spring.html

Link to Dan's trip report: http://idahosummits.com/trip_reports/trip_report.php?trip_id=45