Tomichi Dome 11,465' 04/08/2006

We were greeted by a rotting elk head near the creek crossing we started from at the northwest flank of Tomichi Dome - always a good sign. The morning started out really warm, and I managed to leave my hat in the truck. My sunburn turned out a few shades more red than I would have liked. The stroll up the sagebrush was a little different than I'm used to and was a nice variation. There were views of several other prominent peaks on the way up, most notably Long Branch Baldy and Razor Creek Dome. We navigated for a while south to a series of BLM roads which led to a reasonable ascent up talus heading east. We didn't have any rpoblems at all getting to the steep talus. It was loose enough to require us to take separate lines of ascent.

We topped out on more level ground expecting things to go a little easier. We were grateful for the solid snow thus far, though it was very shortlived after the plastered trees section. What you see on the left is indeed crawling. We fought for flotation by crawling the last quarter mile. Nearly all attempts to posthole through the were fruitless as the now was about 4' deep. It took an unbelievable amount of time to cover that distance. The summit finally revealed itself just as we were 'able' to posthole the last hundred feet or so. Nice views to the southeast of Antora and Ouray. We had a slightly less difficult time on the descent, which still required crawling. The hike down the last portion to the creek from the mesa was a bit steep, and we took care to walk with trees directly below us to break our potential fall. We headed out with a brief stop at Monarch Pass to get 11692A, foregoing any attempts to posthole nearby Dawson Ridge.