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Lundin Peak, December 7, 2005
Frank and Kevin skinning on Lundin
In the years Kevin had lived at Hyak, he'd skied just about every mountain around Alpental, so when we talked about Lundin Peak, I was surprised that he'd never been there. We hooked up with our friend Frank, another Alpental resident, and met at the trailhead a little after 9:00.
We were a little nervous about the depth of the early season snowpack in Commonwealth Basin, but our fears proved to have little merit - there was a killer skintrack put in by someone on the weekend, and the creek crossings were no big deal. Unfortunately, the track ended up going only about half way up the mountain and stopping well short of the huge off-camber face that is the heart of the good skiing on Lundin, so we started breaking trail through a thick layer of wind affected fresh just before the steep portion (approximately waypoint 10 on the TOPO! map below).
Skiing was pretty damn good - after the top couple hundred feet of hop-turning through the crust, the snow softened up and there were fresh turns galore - not exactly powder, but not bad for five days after a storm in the Snoqualmie Pass area!
Incidentally, we had been calling the mountain "LUN-din" all day, but when I stopped in at ProSki in North Bend for some pole baskets on the way down the hill, they assured me it was "lun-DEEN" . . .
(click here for a short video of Kevin & me skiing the top section of Lundin)
