Trip recap:
We arrived relatively early at the Lassen Peak trailhead and found 2 other groups also planning to ski down the North face. One guy had done it before so they shuttled his truck about 30 min down the road to Emigrant Pass (the most convenient hike-out point) so that he could give us all a ride back to the trailhead at the end of the day. There were other groups also heading out to different areas as well, so I'm guessing it's probably pretty common to find someone doing the same route with whom you can shuttle.
Starting from the Lassen Peak trailhead, the trail is generally south facing so most of the path to the summit was snow free so we were able to make it up pretty fast. But there was still an amazing amount of snow remaining for August, and a few other areas besides the main peak were still skiable. Lake Helen was still completely frozen.
We made good time hiking up so we decided to go for two runs that day. On the first run we dropped down the main passage on the southeast face as a warm up.
Great snow coverage on the southeast face still.
After hiking back up a second time, we luckily found the groups we had met in the parking lot and took a little break to enjoy the scenery before riding down.
At around 1 pm our lunch was cut short as a storm started to approach and so we quickly got ready and started to head down at the first sound of thunder. I still had a chance to stop about halfway down to get a few pics of the run.
At the end of that prolonged snow chute you'll want to stay right to have the easiest hike out.
Right as we got to the end of the chute and started to hike out it started hailing, so we set out a little too eagerly to get back to the road. Unfortunately we made the mistake of exiting the chute on the left side rather than the right. You probably want to stay right so you don't have to worry about crossing the gully to get back to the highway. In the gully there's a lot of loose, ashy, volcanic rock mixed in with big boulders. This terrain was pretty unstable and ultimately not very safe to try and scramble down and up, so we had to backtrack almost all the way to find a safe place to cross.
From the topo map its pretty clear the easiest hike-out stays right of the gully and leads directly to Emigrant Pass.
After making it back to the road we were just out of sight of Emigrant Pass, and the guy who had his truck there (let's call him Steve) thought he was parked really far away so he took off jogging down the road in the hail and pretty quickly got a hitchike in the wrong direction... So now we were stranded with the 1 other group, but luckily a nice family with one seat available saved us and gave me a ride back to Lassen Peak trailhead so that I could return with my car to pick up the rest of our party. Within the hour I was gone Steve must have realized he was going the wrong way and made it back to his truck, so all worked out in the end.
Ultimately I had a great time which was capped off with a beautiful view of both our route down and the dusting of hail that had fallen on the mountain.
Northeast face of Lassen Peak after the hail storm. August 5, 2017