Route: West Face

Team: Ted, Jared Ettlinger

I talked my friend Jared Ettlinger into joining me on Mount Democrat. We drove to Fremont Pass, to access the mountain’s west side. It had been nice spring weather leading up to this day, but the night before it snowed about four inches. We figured the new snow wouldn’t slow us down too much.

Wrong. The new snow got deeper and deeper the higher we went. Opting for skins at first, we must have alternated between booting and skinning a half dozen times. Knee-deep snow made it tough to kick steps, and the high angle wasn’t any easier to cut switchbacks. Throughout it all, the sun would poke through the clouds from time to time, reflecting brightly off all the new snow.

After hours of alternating trailbreaking duties, we gained the windy ridge just south of the summit. A short stretch later, we were up top, feeling thoroughly worked— too much sun and dehydrated. We wasted little time before heading down.

The late April temperatures combined with scattered sun had turned the new snow into heavy powder. Ultimately, we resorted to ski-cutting each small section to slough out the new snow, after which we could ski the older bed surface snow. We moved more snow than CDOT probably did across the state that morning. The place was trashed, but at least we were down.

Later that day, my face felt hot, like I had gotten too much sun. It soon became apparent that we both got terrible sunburns. Sometimes new snow reflects more sun and UV than you would expect. Two days later, I heard a comparison between Jared’s peeling face and that of Freddie Kruger. Haha. And mine wasn’t much better.

After nearly two weeks of healing the sunburn, I headed out again, this time to Mount Bross.