Peak Z Ski (attempt)

Date: 5/13/2021
Partner: Joel Paula, Berto
Trailhead: Pitkin TH
Planned Route: Pitkin - Usable - Prime Time Couloir - Zebra Stripe
Distance: 15.5m
Elevation Gain:5500ft
Start: 2:15am
Duration: 10hrs 25min
GPX

Joel and I had been talking about skiing Peak Z for a year now. In fact, Peak Z served as our introduction in the spring of 2020.

When planning the trip, we weighed approaching from Boulder Lake on the east side and approaching from Pitkin over Usable Pass on the west.

While the Boulder Lake approach is shorter and less vertical, it requires significant bushwhacking through the eastern Gore hell forest. The Pitkin approach is longer with more vertical but straight forward navigation and no bushwhacking required. Still burning from a demoralizing gorewhacking experience on a failed Peak L attempt earlier in the season we opted for Pitkin. In retrospect I would choose Pitkin again. Navigating and bushwhacking in the dark isn't so much fun.

The Pitkin approach went as planned and we made good time to Usable Pass, roughly 4 hours. However, we found the snow on the east side of the pass to be complete garbage. One inch of firm breakable crust made skiing a humbling experience. We began to question if we would achieve our objective.

Our plan was to climb about 500ft up the east ridge of Z Prime and ski Prime Time Couloir to the base of the Zebra Stripe. However, snow conditions were bad on every aspect and we were concerned about having to descend steep terrain in dangerous conditions. We made the call to abort the mission about 500ft below Prime Time's entrance.

The ski back to Pitkin was awful... the snow was firm and breakable right up to the trail where we put on our shoes and hiked out. I can't say I have ever covered 5500ft, 15 miles and done pretty much zero skiing... but we did just that.

Back at the trailhead we shared a couple of beers before heading back home. A day of skiing is better than a day of not skiing... especially in one of the Gore's most magical places.