Eldorado Peak

2025-05-08

An outing I don’t mind repeating because the views are sooo good.

Past the creek crossing, the forest hiking, and the boulder field - now time to skin ad nauseum!

Johannesburg in and out of the clouds today - it kind of worried me for our summit bid as I’ve been skunked before but it all ended up okay

Hidden Peaks (literally) in the background

The Eggplant

Eldorado Glacier sloggin’

Oh yea the classic views of Moraine Lake and Forbidden! I still need to make it out there.

Final push up the textured summit

Walking the “knife edge”

Glacier Peak

The lake shot

A corn base and patches of fresh snow to fill any divots for a perfectly planar surface. You would think it’d be a bumpy ski but it didn’t seem to matter at all. Corn == pow == cornpow, one and the same.

What a nice spot to eat a Lunchable

A look back on Eldorado with the clouds now having cleared

Another great run back the way we came

Notes

  • This was probably ~11 miles and ~7600 feet of vertical gain in a little under 8 ½ hours.
  • Last time I skied from the top, we retraced our skin track and pushed, skated, sidestepped the flat/slightly-uphill Eldorado Glacier, but I think the money move is to ski toward Moraine Lake just before the rollover then skin back up to the Eggplant. It only adds about 600 feet but avoids the tricep/ab workout.

Unsolicited Thoughts on Coming Full Circle

They say to never meet your heroes, and I generally have an anti-glazing policy for myself when it comes to public personalities. It’s probably better to assume most are dickheads, but perhaps that’s just my cynicism talking.

That being said, I’ve been watching and enjoying Mediocre Amateur’s YouTube channel long before I laced up a pair of trail runners or attached climbing skins on a pair of skis - likely as far back as 2018 when I learned people run Rim to Rim to Rim on the Grand Canyon in a day (one of the first few quality videos on YouTube to document this, now everyone and their mom has one).

These videos have definitely had an influence on me in terms of communicating what’s out there in the American West (and beyond), what modalities there are to engage with the landscape (trail running, skiing, climbing), what style to do these outings in (fast and light), what’s even doable as a single push, what gear to buy, filming style, etc.

Watching this channel was also insightful as it was my first piece of media to document backcountry skiing in a more “real”, for the everyman, less production heavy style, ultimately informing me that it’s more about the up, engaging with the environment, and skiing some heinous snow conditions at times. A stark contrast from the powder porn that the ski media machine cranks out (more so back in the day).

It was also the first time I saw volcano skiing (“we have volcanos in this country??”) on Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Hood (and them doing this the day after Helens seemed mega to me at the time), Mount Baker, and more. All badass outings to a guy with zero athletic/outdoorsy background working an office job in Virginia.

Other classic videos I’ve loved and expanded the possibilities in my mind were:

With all this laid out, not going to lie it was pretty cool and surreal to ski with Danny, even for someone as jaded as I am. Not only that but also being able to move well and be competent in the mountains together, and playing pseudo-tour guide for one of my favorite places of all time.

These days I sink much more time into reading blogs (probably way too much), and the channel’s international/obscure objectives the last few years have been a little less interesting to me. Still, I’d say this and Lane Aasen’s channel are literally the only two watchable accounts for me (for some reason or another, everyone else seems to have bad pacing, play up the drama, or is a little too on the nose; and I’ve just matured into picking my own path) - so it’s cool that I got to bump into both of them somewhat organically.

Would it be fair to say I wouldn’t be here without seeing Danny’s work? Probably not, I think I was determined to move out west anyways after a repressive time in the east coast. On the other hand, it definitely did have a outsized impact on how I view my relationship with recreating outdoors, so skiing with Ben and Danny in the North Cascades is a full circle moment for me and I’m grateful for that.