Today I went up Mt Rogers via the Swiss Glacier, did a run down the NNW Glacier, then back up to the summit and down the Swiss Glacier.

There was an excellent freeze overnight, with a trace of recent new snow above 2500m. The only places I managed to kick my boots/crampons into the snow more than a centimetre were on the summit ridge of Mt Rogers, and a short section on the NNW glacier where I was able to kick half steps through an old wind crust. There is no powder skiing anywhere I saw, but excellent corn skiing with good timing and I didn’t encounter any breakable crust.

The Hermit Trail was almost bare of snow up to 1650m, then there was enough snow to skin from here. From here I branched off towards the Lizard’s Tail, but a better choice would have been to follow the summer trail up to the Hermit Meadows, then come back down the same way, as the travel was a bit rugged.

There appears to be lots of good options for climbing up there right now too.

Enjoy the Spring!

Alex Geary