Chris and I shook out the cobwebs and remembered what it's like to break trail in and ride super deep snow yesterday in the Crystal Mountain backcountry. We went in with the expectation that we'd be treading lightly and just poking around, but soon realized that rock skis wouldn't be necessary. We stuck to (surprise) the loaded north-facing stuff and it was so good that we stayed until dark. Deep trenches and faceshots all around.
I seem to break lots of poles. In this case I managed to lose the powder basket as well as its plastic attachment, resulting in a stabby-weapon. WTF.
The ride out on the rocky resort groomer was painful on quivering legs, but dinner at the Safeway in the 'claw tasted that much better for it.
Yep, it's that time of year. The days are short, the rains have arrived, and the beer is dark and strong. Sssshhhh, don't tell anyone, but I hear that there's some powder at ___ #$#@ ___.
Dorking around at Sunrise in June:
Boulder/Park Cleaver in a day in July (hot, I bonked):
Some hiking and climbing and swimming:
And now we're back to the first powder turns of the year on Oct. 26. Here's to a siiiiiiiiiicckkk one.
This is a really good line, much better than expected; nice variety with a good flow. It starts off mellow, rolls over for a few steep pitches, cruises a rib, followed by a final huge bowl. Chris and I had awesome snow for the majority of the whole 4,000 foot run; a little firm off the top and a little sticky at the bottom, but smooooooth. So good. The hike in and out is a little long, but easy on a nice trail. 4 stars, at least in early spring when it's good top to bottom.
As we topped out on Whitman Crest we were shocked to see that a huge slide had taken out the Ingraham Direct, and the circling helicopters did not bode well. We put that out of our minds and enjoyed the ride down.
One of the steep pitches.
A minimally edited (and long) video.
The first 3:45 are cruising the Fryingpan Glacier, from there until 6:15 we're rolling over the steeps of Meany Crest, the next 45 seconds is on a cool little rib, and from 7:00 on we're finishing off the final enormous bowls down into Summerland.
This was a a great tour with a refreshing blue sky; the first after a really moist spring in the PNWet.
The Eastern Sierra is an incredible spot for spring ski touring. No bushwacking required. No devils club, alder, or mushy, un-ridable snow. No rain. But there is quite a bit of wind. Well, a lot of wind. But there is also a lot of sun, and real corn snow with real melt-freeze cycles. And it's easy to do a 4,000 foot run and be back to the parking lot by 12:30.
The approaches to some of the goods can be a little long and flat (Rock Creek) and the altitude takes some acclimatization, but the terrain is big, fun, and user-friendly. The access is incredible with a bunch of nice roads going up to 10k. Hot springs, bouldering, rednecks, RV people, cheap happy hour at Whiskey Creek in Bishop or Mammoth Lakes, coffee and web surfing at the Black Sheep. No National Park bureaucracy.
Favorites: riding powder on N. facing slopes at Virginia Lakes, steeps gullies in different drainages near University Peak above Independence, huge bowls and steep faces out of South Lake near Aspendale, partying with other dirtbags in the Buttermilks, Punta Bardini and Solitude Canyon by Mammoth. Meeting other like-minded souls at trail heads.
On the list for the future: camping up by Treasure Lakes and hitting a bunch of lines (as opposed to day tripping), Mount Wood (looks like a Volcano), Checkered Demon (need a car with higher clearance).
Lo-lights: having to suck it up and buy a bunch of topos, trying to get up early, getting scared, getting lost.
My dog came along with me and charged. Good times.
Virginia Lakes at the end of April.
The dog always napped when we got back to the car.
N. face Hurd tracked by a large guided group (with Tom Burt and Jim Zellers).
Looking down a steep gully. I was stoked.
Chara wasn't that impressed.
Lovely gray granite by University Peak.
Enhanced P Laps.
Chara chillaxing in the milks.
House-sized highball.
Livin' the dream.
Did I mention that there is nobody home?
But it's a long way into here.
Another nice steep chute, with a little excitement off the top.
Winter returned to the Cascades with a vengeance during early April, with about 6-7 feet of new snow falling at low temps. It was fun to be out during stormy weather and ride deep powder in empty old growth.
On April 4, Chris and I rode W/NW forested slopes above Lanham Lake, east of Stevens Pass, where the snow was protected, very deep, and nice and light (especially for April). Lots of face shots.
Getting up this thing was a b*tch since the terrain was pretty steep and tight, making skinning switchback-intensive and progress painfully slow. I was feeling defeated, but Chris persevered and broke trail to the top of the ridge, and I followed.
The ride down was pretty sweet in some of the deepest snow of the year in fun, challenging terrain. The snow definitely wanted to sluff off of the steeper pitches, adding a little bit of excitement in the tight spots. A short-ish but great day, since neither of us were down for another round of up. We chose to blame that on being tired from previous days efforts as opposed to being lazy.
Chris and I didn't really know what to expect on this day, but we figured that we'd go for a tour and see what we could find. The weather was supposed to be decent, so we could at least stand on top of a couple of summits and if the snow cooperated, hopefully get some fun turns in as well.
We slogged up Smithbrook road for 3 miles, and then headed up to the summit of Union Peak. As we crested the ridge, I stomped hard in some crusty, wind and sun affected snow on top of a steep roll, when whoompf, the snow settled a bit. That got the heart beating. After about 3.5 hours we were on top looking at the gleaming south face of Jove. That looks like a money run, but not on this day.
We dropped about 600 ft down the ridge to the saddle between Union and Jove, which I skied with skins on in split mode. In retrospect, I should have boarded it since the ridge was a long string of windlips that were tough to ski and the time saved by foregoing transitioning was eaten up by slow sidestepping.
The climb up Jove was not as easy as it looked and seemed to take forever. We should have put our ski crampons on, which we both had, but we were being stubborn -- well, at least I was. It was one of those days. Finally on the summit, the wind was pretty brutal and it had taken us 6 hours to get there! As we were about to drop into a hole that requires a couple of climbs to get out of, Chris asked if I brought a headlamp.
The ride down the west facing slopes to Lake Janus was nice and long and meandering, and we tried to milk it. Big wide-open alleys were fun to connect, and then open old growth led to the lake. Good times.
A climb up to a ridge, a short descent, and another climb/traverse to Union Gap was follwed by another descent to Smithbrook road. It was pretty much survival skiing at this point in manky snow, and I managed to get cliffed out above the road cut. One of those days! 3 miles of road slogging back out to the car. The road isn't steep enough to snowboard, so I skinned out. I should have sucked it up and removed the skins, or at least one of them. Next time.
I can't imagine that the run down to Lake Janus gets done that often. It certainly felt like we were deep in the wild on this day. Here's a video:
I went on a really great cat skiing trip to Baldface, which is a short helicopter ride outside of Nelson, BC. This was during Frequency's 'Freq Week' so there were a bunch of super solid riders there who were stoked to ride lots and lots of pow.
I was worried that we were going to get skunked on snow, but luckily a storm came through right before we arrived. The persistent weak layers that have plagued interior BC all winter were in play, but Baldface has lots of safe terrain. There was really nice powder in the north facing trees, so those were the runs that were the most fun, and that's where we spent most of our time, but the more alpine terrain rode nicely as well.
While I prefer touring, getting all that vert is hard to beat. The number of runs we did in a day was well above 10, too many to keep track of. They weren't all epic, but a lot of them were, especially once I realized that if a run wasn't perfect, it wasn't a big deal since there were a lot more to come. Having a solid crew of riders who could all hold their own definitely kept things moving.
The plushness of the place was a little odd for this dirtbag, but all the other like-minded spirits made the experience really fun. Awesome food, a nice bar, and quality riding.
