Peak: Mount Columbia
Date: 5/29/08
Partners: Just the pooch
Route: 3 elk Creek
4800 vert, ~10 miles RT

For those of you who aren’t aware Bill is quite the ski tech and after breaking my binding in half on Evans the day before:

I had to mount a new pair ASAP. Well bill being the nice guy he is did it for me. Thanks bill!

So the plan was to start early around 4 am to hit this mostly east facing part of the mountain. After a lot of climbing this week, I didn’t actually leave the truck until 7. Oh well…if nothing else I’ll check it out. 9200 is a low trailhead, and I was walking with boots and skis on my back until around 10,600. From here it was off and on skinning, walking until I was above treeline.
From here it looked like off and on snow if I went straight to the summit, and it was probably a little late to try to climb my ski route, so I went lookers left and gained the ridge(skinning all the way) just about .8 miles east of the summit. From here I walked the rolling ridge with a short snowclimb up the summit and reached there around 1 pm. Well that’s what you call a late day on an East Face. Luckily the clouds had been rolling on and off over the area, and the wind had been blowing fairly strong, so it hadn’t softened too much. I clicked in and linked turns across the ridge and towards the ski line where I dropped into the short couloirs that led to the apron, all the while the dog running behind me, making him stay in safe zones the whole way down. The snow was certainly melted a little beyond corn, but it was not as sloppy as I thought it might be, and the turns were really fun. It took about 2.5 hours to get back to the car. Any way here are some pics:

Good day, but an earlier start would have been better