Chicago Basin Part 3: Sunlight Peak 14,059′ 5-11-08
After our day on Eolus, we turned in early for an early morning wake-up call for our attempts of Sunlight and Windom. This time, 4:30am was cold and clear rather than snowy. The sun finally hit us in the upper basin near twin lakes. Jordan, thinking that just as Eolus lived up to its’ name by being windy, so to was Sunlight living up to its’ name:
My legs sure are long:
This is a pretty cool place to be- Brittany skinning in the upper basin, with Eolus behind:
We dumped a little gear high in the basin between Windom and Sunlight and started booting up Sunlight. Jarrett and Brittany:
Things got a lot more interesting as we got into the rocky top section of Sunlight. Jarrett:
Eventually, we made the rocky summit (Jordan):
We took our time at the summit, checking out all the lines in the area. Windom’s widowmaker, which we hoped to ski next, looked quite steep from Sunlight:
Then it was time to ski. We started by the summit register and USGS marker, just below the summit block (as every other Sunlight skier has done). We first had to ski off the East side before we could go through a notch back to the south side. Brittany:
The notch:
Then the skiing became more straightforward and fun (more Brittany):
Jordan:
A couple of me:
Back to Brittany:
Jarrett:
Jordan:
The route:
We skied back to around 13,000′ in the upper valley to our gear cache, and then began the boot up Windom. More on that later…
