Summary so far

Hello friends! I am currently 19 days and 21 peaks into the SPS 2022 effort. So far, it has been a wonderful success, with some excellent days in the mountains and even some great powder skiing!

I began the effort in the Lake Tahoe area. My little sister Elsa joined me for the first two peaks, Mt. Rose and Castle Peak. She was my very first rock climbing partner and is one of my favorite adventure buddies, and we had a great time enjoying the stormy weather together. After Elsa left, I went on a tour around the region, with successful summits of all the SPS peaks from Highland Peak north. Highlights included skiing powder on Dicks Peak that was so good I took a couple “bonus laps”, a lovely summit siesta on Freel Peak as I waited for the snow to soften for better skiing conditions, and dropping in on a rarely skied descent on the west face of Highland.

After finishing the Tahoe area peaks, I headed down to the Eastside, one of my favorite places on earth. It is home to massive lines that rise thousands of feet straight up from the desert to high alpine summits. I hoped to start with a big linkup near Bridgeport and simply work my way south. Unfortunately, a storm with significant wind, creating potentially dangerous wind slabs, forced a change of plans. I picked some more moderate routes that avoided the potential instabilities, and successfully skied off the summits of Warren, Koip, and San Joaquin. After a very dry January and February, snow conditions in the Sierra are very challenging, with lots of bare aspects, exposed rocks, wind-sculpted snow, and very firm surface conditions. However, I was still able to make ski descents of the Dana Couloir and Coke Chute, after a big day summiting both Dana and Gibbs. I’ve been enjoying some extra rest and recovery due to very high winds forecasted in the area today, but am excited to be back at it bright and early tomorrow morning with a big linkup in the Sawtooth Range!

Edit: this post and many before had days misnumbered due to not accounting for a rest day. They have been corrected. The timer in the upper right has the correct running time.