back to Brokeoff

We had hoped to ski with our friend Mathilde this weekend but yesterday probably wouldn’t have worked. We got a lovely rainbow in the valley and more signs of spring. The snow below 6000 feet was puny and wet today so we went up the Brokeoff drainage below the Lassen Park entrance. We hadn’t been up there for two years! My memory of it was that it had steep areas that opened to vast steppes but today we seemed to find ourselves in the woods until we stopped for lunch in the late afternoon. There was about eight inches of fresh powder but there was also very little base so that manzanita, rocks, logs and deep spaces made me uneasy about my invisible feet sluicing along below me. Despite being slow going, it was really beautiful and we got back to the car at dark.