Diamond Peak 5-14-10

A few photos from Friday on Diamond Peak. This was my second try at skiing it; the first time was a few years ago in early March with Steve. We ran into bad conditions on the face and continued on after abandoning the boards pretty low on the ridge. For me, Diamond is one of the safest winter or spring 12er to climb but I always suspected skiing its East face would be the absolute opposite.

On Thursday, my climbing partner had to bail at the last minute and I decided it would be too risky to stick with an East face descent without a lifeline and I was more than a little relieved to set my sights on the South face.

I was able to drive all the way to the trail head and after a short hike, spent a comfortable night on the ridge at 9,300’ The climb to the top wasn’t what I’d expected, a lot of the snow was punchy (sometimes all the way to my waist) and I was pretty worked by the time I hit the top. The weather couldn’t have been better though, mostly sunny and totally windless. I recuperated for about an hour and then set off down the huge and wide open South face. The snow conditions were as good as the weather and I made effortless turns in perfect corn on an aspect that is probably less than 40 degrees. Easily the best ski down any of the 12ers I’ve yet had!


Camp on the ridge below the East face.


Evening light on alluvial ridges below camp

Just below the summit from the East ridge.

On the top.



>