Round Top Mountain Ski Mountaineering

Round Top (10,381ft)

Climbing below the west peak

Eric and Matthew Gilbertson

March 9-10, 2019

I flew down to California Friday night and we immediately started driving out of Oakland into the mountains. The sierras had just gotten a few feet of fresh snow, so sounded like great backcountry skiing conditions. The plan was to climb Round Top, a 10,000ft peak near Carson Pass, and camp up near the summit.

Skiing towards the summit

After picking up a backcountry camping permit outside the Eldorado National Forest rangers office we headed into the mountains. At one point we encountered a pickup truck sliding slowly sideways on a steep icy stretch of road. Before hitting that section we put chains on and made it through no problem, but many cars behind us just turned around.

We made it to Carson Pass around midnight and slept in the back of the car.

In the morning we packed up and started skiing directly from the parking lot. There’s a 10ft+ tall snow wall on the side of the lot, but a nice ramp to climb up and over it to reach the trail. We were the first ones out for the day, and it started out sunny, cold, and windy.

Digging out camp

Eventually we skied up to an icy section just below the west col of Round Top, then dropped our packs to get a few ski laps in. We skied down to Round Top Lake, then skinned back up to the pass, then did a few more laps. Other parties showed up, with everyone turning around at the pass and returning to the trailhead.

By around 1pm we decided to find a campsite. We had originally hoped to camp on the summit, but by then it was

Returning from the summit

extremely windy and visibility was dropping. We instead packed up and skied down to the shelter of a few trees near Round Top Lake. Over the next few hours the weather changed to white out, and we spent the rest of the day fortifying our camp with snow walls and digging out a big snow cave. It was a good call not to try to camp any higher in those conditions.

In the morning the weather cleared and we skinned from camp up to the col. From there we put on crampons and hiked up the west ridge through thick rime ice. Once on the false west summit we descended to a col below the true east summit. I found a gully to climbers right and hacked my way through huge rime ice feathers to create a nice boot track to the summit. According to summitpost this bit is 4th class and some people rappel it, but we didn’t see any need for a rope. Perhaps the snow coverage makes it easier in the winter time.

Skiing back to camp

Views were amazing of Lake Tahoe to the north and undercast building to the east. We carefully downclimbed the route back to our skis, then decided to tag a nearby peak called The Sisters (10,153ft). We reached the summit around 11am, then returned to our skis and skied back to camp.

After packing up we skinned up to a lower col, then skied back to Carson Pass by 2pm. Traffic was heavy back to the bay area but I made my evening flight back to Seattle.

Timelapse video of digging the snow cave: