"After a big day skiing Bloody Couloir yesterday the plan was to go for Matterhorn Peak, an even bigger day. But as always, the scale of the Eastern Sierra brought us back down to earth. In the early morning we stayed glued in our beds until the worsening forecast finally gave us an out -- Winter Was Coming. 28 degrees, snow and strong winds at higher elevations. Matterhorn was definitely out of the picture. But with none of us wanting to outright bail, we soon found ourselves sitting in the car at the Virginia Lakes parking lot, in a snowstorm, no one wanting to get out. We studied the multitude of aesthetic lines from the car until finally we built up enough enthusiasm to get out there. We knew it was going to be frozen hardpack, but it was beyond that, the snow was marble-ized; it was leave-no-trace skiing. We skinned for a futile couple hundred vert until switching off to crampons the rest of the way. One of us (uhh, maybe me) voted for throwing in the towel, the snow conditions were so abysmal. But I was overruled and we kept climbing. Later, when Hinny began laughing and itching to turn around, Cooney strongly pushed for "30 more minutes". Gale-force winds (whatever tha..." — scott • Jun 11, 2017