Posts Tagged: California

Tucked away in a corner of the John Muir Wilderness, Red Slate Mountain isn’t climbed all that frequently. That’s a shame, because it’s a fun climb, and the summit offers amazing views—at 13,129 feet, the only higher Sierra to the north is Mount Ritter (though some sources list Red Slate at 13,163’, which would make it higher than Ritter), and the next higher peak to the south is nine or ten miles away.

The winter of 2013 started off well for skiers on the West Coast. A wet November dumped plenty of snow to get some skiing in over Thanksgiving, and an even better December made conditions around the holiday season and New Year’s excellent. Unfortunately, those first two months of the season were followed by the driest January on record and an equally uninspiring first half of February. When I went to Kirkwood over Presidents Day weekend, it hadn’t snowed much at all in almost six weeks.