[TR] Eagle Peak, CA - not your usual suspect 6/10/2011

[grinter]

Trip: Eagle Peak, CA - not your usual suspect

 

Date: 6/10/2011

 

Trip Report:

Eagle Peak is the highest point in Modoc County at 9897' and has been enticing me with its snow covered slopes since I moved to Canby a month ago. A decent waether forecast for Friday got me out chasing my June turns.

 

I started out from the Soup Springs Trailhead at a bright and early 9am and proceeded to slog 2 miles through patchy snow and sucking mud to the Wilderness Boundary and the low pass that allows easy access to the Mill Creek Valley and the first views of Eagle Peak and the Saddleback.

 

 

 

A snowcoverd slope down to the rushing Mill Creek tempted me to pull the skins of and catch some quick turns, but I opted to continue my slog. As I approached Mill Creek the bridge I had imagined would grant me easy acces across appeared not to exist and I began looking for a fordable section.

 

With a quick hop across a side channel and toenumbing barefoot wade through the main stream I made it across with no difficulties. I decided the best approach to eagle Peak would be from the Saddleback and finally clicked into skis as I ascended through the timber along Slide Creek. A small drainage leads to the NE where Slide Creek turns sharply west after flowing north from Eagle peaks shoulders. As I truly began to climb here I got some great views of the bowl I planned to descend.

 

From the drainage I made a rising traverse towards the middle of the Saddleback trying to stick to openings in the trees and lower angled slopes. The slight descent along the Sadlleback to the final ridge on Eagle Peak was a welcome relief and allowed me to catch my breath before the final push.

 

The final ridge was climbed with a series of switchbacks and some photos were quickly snapped as the wind and overcast skies were not making for a comfortable summit.

 

 

Some quick turns through stunted whitebark pine brought me to the top of the bowl on Eagles NW shoulder where I was presented with some glorious turns on mushy corn for several hundred feet.

 

 

I wound through several wooded "cliff" bands and skied the snowed over but rapidly melting Slide Creek until breaking out into a low angle aspen meadow. Here the snow got sticky and making progress required a bit of effort but I kept the skis on and linked some snowpatches as far as I could before finally relenquished and retraced my muddy steps back to the car.

 

Approach Notes:

Soup Springs gets you about a 100' higher and better situated for a snow approach then Mill Creek Falls but probably gonna have to wait til next year for this one