Ralston Peak 2023-04-08

My friends Steven and Charles and I were looking at doing a ski tour out somewhere in Tahoe the weekend of the 8th. Steven and I had skied Mt. Tallac two weekends prior, and we had big aspirations to return to ski The Cross, a couloir off of the mountain.

I had the day off on Friday, so I drove out to Tahoe around 3:30 on Saturday. I made it there in a pretty fairly straight shot; after stopping for some food along the way, I ended up at the Mellow Mountain hostel at 9:30. The front desk was closing right as I arrived, and I grabbed my room keys and headed over to our room before they left for the night. I had called ahead of time and asked them to put Charles, Steven and I in the same room. I had a bad experience last time with roommates, so it was great that we were all together. Charles and Steven were a couple of hours behind me, and so I went to the common room and hung out with the other folks there. There were a couple of people there that I had met two weekends prior, so the vibes were great. We went out to a couple bars, and when Steven and Charles showed up I headed back to go to sleep around 11:30pm.

Alarms went off at 6am, and we rolled out of bed. I sped over the common room, made some pancakes, and coffee for breakfast. We all clean to sleep from our eyes while waiting for the Sierra avalanche center to release their forecast for the day. The avalanche forecast showed wet loose on all aspects, pretty heavy wind loading on North to East aspects, and add this in later. We decided to pivot and instead of going to Tallac, which was all Northeast gullies, we decided to go to Ralston Peak.

Driving West on the 50 out of South Lake Tahoe, echo peak loomed in the distance and buoyed our groggy spirits. A short drive later found us at the base of Ralston, gearing up for a long skin. This was Charles’s first time out on backcountry skis. The plan for the day was pretty mellow- we would go up to the top of Ralston peak drop over the northern side, down to Lake of the Woods, turn around head back up Ralston peak again, and then visit cup lake before skiing out to the car.

The day was forecasted to be very hot, but starting early in the morning was pretty darn cold. A 15 minutes of skinning fix that problem. We had parked on the opposite side of route 50 to the mountain, on the end of a dead end road, and had to climb the massive snow banks that flanked either side of the highway to get to the bottom of the mountain. We made quick work of the first trip to the summit. Steven took the technique of going straight up the hill, and I took wide sweeping arcs. Charles split the difference between the two of us. The bottom section of the approach was up a stream gully, which then rounded out into a long relatively flat traverse up to the top.

We were treated to absolutely impeccable weather. It was 45° and sunny the whole day, and a few clouds sat in the sky to cover up the sun when it seemed to get too hot. When we first reached the peak, we were treated to views in every direction, from Desolation Wilderness stretching out to the northwest to Pyramid peak and the spine to Price in the opposite direction.

The whole time that I was up there, I was looking at the potential route that I had planned for my ski traverse. I think that this coming weekend, if I have any energy left in me, I might try and do a one-way traverse from somewhere north of Dick’s peak down to pyramid peak and the 50. Steven said that he might be available to drop me at my car if I commit to the traverse. The route looks gorgeous, and the snow and conditions are absolutely perfect to do it now. Travel is fast and the days are long.

We hung out at the summit for a little while looking over the map of Desolation Wilderness and trying to identify the peaks around us. Next we headed down the the north-west side down to Lake of the Woods. Charles flew Steven’s drone and tried to get a video of Steven and I skiing down.

We made quick work down to the lake, where we hung out for a little while. I made some glop (oats, protein powder and coconut flakes) while Steven and Charles hung out. On the opposite side of the lake, there was a little 600 ft rocky outcrop, which we dubbed “Mailbox Peak.” We decided to skin over to and make a quick ascent to the top. Between the blue skies, the midday sun, and the terrain around us, there was a stunning vista from the top.

With the snow quickly melting in the midday sun, we packed up our things and headed back up to the top of Ralston peak. It was a bit of a slog to get there, and we stopped for a minute on the way up to boil some snow for water, but we made it eventually. The wind hadn’t died down much since our first trip to the top, but the sun was out, and the temperatures were a little bit warmer.

Our next objective was to go check out cup lake. At one point we had planned to head up to cup lake and camp for the night, but it wasn’t in the cards for this weekend. It was a quick ride down the ridge to the top of the cliff overlooking cup lake. We were met with huge cornices surrounding the valley and wet, sloppy snow. We decided that it wasn’t worth going down. We added cup lake to the checkout later list.

It was now 3 or so, and so we decided to head back to the car. We skied down the path that we had skinned up, and with all of the solar radiation from the day, the hard pack from the morning had turned into corn slush. The snow was incredibly sticky, and required skiing with my knees bent at a 90° angle just to keep myself from going head over tips. When we got most of the way to the bottom, we decided to stop and skin back up for a section to hit 5K elevation for the day. Steven and Charles were really feeling it by the time we made the ascent, but we hit the mark and felt good about it. Last adventure of the day was skiing out back to the car along the burnt section of the side slope that we had skinned up before.

We made it back to the car, and I reveled in putting on a cotton sweatshirt and dry socks. Sometimes that’s the best part of the day. Charles had brought a giant pack of Costco croissants, and as bad as the croissant were, it was one of the better croissants I’ve had in my life purely due to the circumstances. By this point it was around 6:00 p.m., so we packed up our things, headed down the hill to Placerville, and capped off the day with a hearty meal at a diner.

Click and drag to pan. Scroll to zoom. Control + click and drag to rotate