Ben Lomond Periphery

Yesterday my doctor-in-training brother Boog and I went to ski Ben Lomond. I had a man-cold and Jeff ran 13 miles on Friday, so our energy levels were pretty low right from the get go. I've wanted to ski BL for a long time, and it was fun to finally get out on that mountain.

Skin track up. It was really warm.


Willard Peak looks pretty impressive.


I'm afraid I've made a dedicated resort-skier out of Jeff after yesterday. I'm sure there were several times when he was thinking "What are we doing?! Can't we just ride in the gondola and chill on the way up?" Alpine touring is not for sissies. It is alot of work! We were both suffering a little bit and it didn't help that my route finding added an extra 1.5 miles onto the approach, or that I'm using Nordica Beasts as my touring ski boots. One of these days hopefully I can upgrade.



We went up the red path on the map, should've gone up on the orange path, and skied down the green. We opted not to go all the way to the summit as it was pretty wind loaded and exposed so it didn't seem particularly safe to ski it. So, we decided to ski off the shoulder. With a ski cut I released a small slab about 1' deep and 30 feet wide. That confirmed to me that the summit would've been a bad idea yesterday.

We were not dissapointed on the ski down and the hike was worth it. I had the best powder turns of the winter down 35 degree slopes for 2000 feet on cold, soft snow. Below 7,000' the snow was really wet and there were several pinwheels. Skiing the last bit through that wet cement was kind of a bummer, but a wise man once said "It doesn't always have to be fun for it to be fun." Overall, a fun day even though I felt like poo and I was glad to have Jeff along.

Prepping for the down.


Jeff dropping in.


Jeff 5 seconds after dropping in.


Sorry, no action shots. I'm really bad at taking those.