Pyramid Peak

Back to Pyramid Peak for a third time, and true to the Desolation Wilderness name, I didn't see a single other person the entire day — just me and a mountain still buried in a heavy spring snowpack. The trail disappeared under snow well before treeline this time, turning most of the day into off-trail travel, picking lines up snowfields and talus with no one else's tracks to follow.

The summit came with strong wind and snow deep enough to sink to my knees in more than a few spots, exactly the kind of conditions that make you earn a summit instead of just walking up to it. Between the wind and the postholing, I didn't linger up there long this time — just long enough for one selfie with the Crystal Range spread out behind me, snow and granite in every direction, before starting back down.

Short stay at the top or not, it was completely worth it. Total solitude on the highest point in the Desolation Wilderness, with a view that good, is a rare combination — sometimes the harder conditions make an already great mountain feel even more like your own for the day.

Three years after the first trip up, I went back to Pyramid Peak and got an even snowier version of the mountain than the first time — a big late-May snowpack still draped over the Crystal Range, turning the upper slopes into a mix of exposed granite and lingering snowfields. Same off-trail scramble above treeline, same need to pick a line through talus and snow to find the true summit, just with noticeably more white on the landscape than my early-June visit three years earlier.

The summit view somehow topped the memory of the first time. The whole Crystal Range spread out in every direction, granite basins holding alpine lakes still rimmed with ice, and Lake Tahoe sitting blue and unmistakable on the horizon. A bright orange jacket against all that white and gray granite made for some of the best summit photos I've taken anywhere on this list — this was genuinely one of the most beautiful days I've had on any mountain.

Some peaks you revisit because they're convenient or you're chasing a specific season; this one I came back to simply because the first visit was that good, and the second one didn't disappoint at all.

Pyramid Peak is the highest point in the Desolation Wilderness at 9,983 feet, and in early June there was still enough snow on the upper mountain to make the last stretch interesting. The trail more or less disappears above treeline, and by the final few hundred feet I was off-trail entirely, picking my way up talus and snowfields to find the actual summit.

It was completely worth it. The top looks out over the whole Crystal Range and dozens of alpine lakes scattered across granite basins below, with Lake Tahoe visible in the distance. One of the most beautiful views I've had from any summit, snow travel and all.