An attempt to ski Hudson Peak, June 20, 2001

Well, our attempt to climb peak 10150 had failed the day before. We were getting bored, it was time to do something, but too warm to climb. So we decided on a ski of Hudson Peak. The skiing so far had been excellent, and we expected nothing less on Hudson.

Picture from our high point. Mt St. Elias way in the background, with some clouds around it

Well, there isn't much left to say, other than it sucked. There was about 200ft of somewhat ok skiing, but otherwise, it involved 35-40 degree slopes of breakable crust, slush, and icy bumps.

The conditions were so bad, that Marcus tried to ski it on his back.

Back at the bottom, we decided to time our ski back to camp. So far, the funnest skiing had been on the one and a half mile run back to camp, that drops only 800ft. A cruiser. However, this time the sun had turned it softer than ever, and some parts required serious poling. So it was slow, but it didn't matter , since Dave's GPS didn't track the signal all the way back anyway.

Later on in the trip, we tried timing this run again, in slightly firmer conditions. I think it took around 8 minutes, with a maximum speed, not trying too hard, of between 23 and 27 MPH.