Davis Peak — Friday, Nov. 17, 2023

Spectacular day on Davis Peak, as Ngie and I got up to the top of Davis-Central Peak. We were above the inversion layer all, so we had some phenomenal views.

When we started at 8:30 am, it was well below freezing! Brrrr! We could hear the ground frost and ice crunching as drove down to the upper parking area. The road and parking area was snow free.

We started to run into some snow on the trail about 3500 ft or so, and snow came continuous at around 4000 ft. At around 5000 ft, we put on snowshoes, and used them all the way to the summit. Not a cloud in the sky and hardly any wind. Getting over to the Central Peak from the Lookout site was a chore with the snow covered rocks. This took some care, and quite a bit more time than expected. After getting to the Central Peak at 2:40 pm, we decided that with the current conditions, there was no way we were going to head over to the North Peak. We took of our snowshoes and put on crampons for our descent off the Central Peak, which helped tremendously with some of the tricky snow covered scramble sections, until we got back down towards the Lookout site, where we put on snowshoes.

It was now getting close to sunset, and we were rewarded with an amazing sunset. Wow, what a sight with the inversion layer below up. So many of the surrounding peaks looked like islands!! Pretty sweet.

Once we got down to 5000ft we were in the inversion layer, and in complete fog, until we finally got below it at 4000ft. We finished at 6:40 pm. 9.5 miles with 4460 ft gain. Just a fantastic day!!!