Category Archives: Backcountry Skiing

We woke up after a windy night of sleeping on rocks and tried to wait it out for the sun to reach our breakfast spot.  I estimated 20 minutes, which was about an hour off, but it got people out of the tents – if only to hike to the sunny spot and have breakfast there.  Mornings were pretty cold.  Here is James with a rock frozen to his sock.

We had to descend and knew it wouldn’t be soft, but the south face was actually pretty good and it was nice to start off the day with a few turns.  This was where we made a small mistake.  We looked at Harrison pass and it looks steep and icy and while we couldn’t see Ericsson pass, we had a photo and to us it looked more inviting – at least from afar.  When we approached Ericsson pass, we realized there was a colossal cornice that would probably be difficult to get around, so we lost some valuable time and back tracked to Harrison – which, of course, wasn’t as steep as it looked head on.  James and I started skinning up Harrison, while David opted to boot since he didn’t have ski crampons.  Just like Deerhorn the day before, we found a mixture of consolidated and unconsolidated snow and in the warming sun, this translated to tremendous skin glop – so we booted the rest… and it actually was steep.

At the top of Harrison we were treated to views of Tyndall and even a sliver of Whitney – we were about to descend gradually for miles and meet up with the tradition Sierra High Route.

It was nice to finally gain some ground as you’ll notice in the map below.  One of the items we used was a spot messenger and it sent our loved ones our location and whether or not we were ok each night at camp and this one would finally cover some distance.  Here are the splitboarders skiing their splits – which is a pretty crucial skill here

We descended to the mouth of the Kern River Canyon and saw the 1st skin track we’ve seen since Kersearge.  We switched over to skins and started the long, but gradual climb up to Milestone – one of the highest passes of the trip.  Our original goal was to make it over Milestone, but the sun was hot and we opted for a nice camp on the East side of Milestone with lots of views and no one else around.  With the fresh skin tracks, we knew it wouldn’t be long before we saw actual people and so it was nice to have one more night of camping with no one else around.

Complete with a view of our next objective giving us the finger – Milestone Pass. Or maybe a thumbs up?  We needed the rest because we had plans for a super ambitious day 4.

We woke up and got out of camp a little after 8am – our earliest departure so far.  The plan was to climb 5 passes today – Milestone, “Not as Steep as it Looks,” Triple Divide, Copper Mine, and No Name or “Teleshorts” pass.  So we started the climb up Milestone.

After a long and surprisingly hot (for 9 AM) climb, we reached the top and were treated to a super fun corny descent down Milestone Bowl – known as one of the better descents of the SHR.  Here I am skiing Milestone (photo by David)

David harvesting corn

Cool view of the Black Kaweahs right before we ran into the first people we’d see on this trip.  That crew was a guided group from ASI and Geoff Clarke – telemark instructor extraordinaire – was their guide.  It was nice to see a familiar face out there!

Next it was up Not as Steep as it Looks – which was a little rotten in places and therefore renamed “More sketch than it looks” by me.  Back in our disguises…

Then it was a long contour down to the base of Triple Divide to don skins again and climb up to Triple Divide Pass – which was surprising easy.  And obviously super beautiful.  It helped that we got to do a fair amount of fun descending.

The last big pass was Copper Mine and we were all feeling super strong.  We powered up it awed by the scenery in the adjacent Cloud Canyon.

Happy to be at the top of pass #4!

Copper Mine pass is usually a downclimb, but this year it was skiable.  With a full pack I was a little apprehensive.

But once the crux was navigated, it was fun jump turns and a long contour around Deadman’s canyon.  Deadmans was unreal!

At the top of our final pass, we ran into some folks from Tahoe who we knew!  It was the 3rd group we saw that day after not seeing anyone for 3 days.  I guess that is what happened when you cover some serious ground on the traditional route!  Then it was just a fun decent down to a large flat rock we had eyed from the top of the pass as a good camp.  What a day!

Map from days 3 and 4.

When a super reliable and experienced ski partner of mine told me he was planning on doing the Sierra High Route, I rearranged my schedule and blocked out the first week of May in hopes that the weather would cooperate.  As the departure date became closer, it was looking more and more probable and we started planning things like lightweight tents, food and car shuttles.  Turns out my ski partners David and James – two phenomenal splitboarders actually, had all that stuff dialed and I basically had to show up.  Add to that the first stable week-long forecast in the Sierras since January and we were all set.  How lucky was I?

The plan was to start from Kearsarge Pass – which is different from the traditional Shepard Pass start, but allowed us a few advantages.  First off, we got to skin from the car.  Here we are all smiles and ready to disguise ourselves from the sun.

The second advantage was that the route took us by Deerhorn Mountain which has a super cool couloir that we were all interested in skiing.  The third advantage that we didn’t anticipate, but was pretty nice, was that we didn’t see other people for 3 days! 

The Sierra sun is super intense in May so we came up with some crazy disguises.  James kind of looks like a Taliban fighter… this is the same day US Forces killed Osama Bin Laden, but we didn’t know about that until much later in the trip (photo credit: David).

We skied a few runs and set up camp in Vidette Meadow.  David had scored a Black Diamond Mega Light tent and we had fun figuring out the best way to set that up every night.  This was our worst tent job, but a cool background (photo credit: David).

The next day we set out to ski the Deerhorn Couloir, our premier side route of the trip.  The skin up to the couloir was a great pitch and grippy snow, but the boot pack was tough.  Our first good view of Deerhorn couloir (photo credit: David).:

James booting up

View from the top and somewhat towards the rest of our route (near that flat mountain aptly named Table Mtn).

We were hoping to ski some corn on the way down, but a light wind and the high elevation kept the sun-exposed snow really hard.  So we stayed in the sun-protected snow and found some decent wind affected powder.  I did a little helmet camming, but the mount was not right so I’ll save you the time.  The run was steep and the snow was pretty variable, but it was a long, aesthetic, and exhilarating run. 

After skiing Deerhorn, we returned to the stuff we had stashed to make our packs lighter and donned our heavy packs again to continue on our route.  The full weight of the pack was not welcome after booting up a 2,000 ft couloir and so when we crested the next pass and saw how steep the next one looked, we decided to make camp on the pass and treat ourselves to late sun and stellar views.

Mt. Ericsson looking pretty (photo credit: David).

Here is a GPS track from Days 1 and 2 of our trip.

Stay tuned for days 3 -6.

It was Pat’s spring break and my friend Eric invited us down to his house near Mammoth for some spring ski touring.  The Eastern Sierras is possibly one of the best backcountry skiing areas in North America.  With big and aesthetic lines and a stable deep snowpack, there are endless possibilities.  Add to that mix unique desert/mountain scenery, natural hot springs, and a 5 hr minimum drive from any big cities, it is a true getaway.

Moonset over Dunderberg Peak

On day 1 we set out to ski Mt. Gibbs, but the road to the trailhead was snowed in.  As we hiked up the road, we realized we were much further from Gibbs than it appeared when we left the cars and we settled on skiing Mt. Lewis.

South/east sides of Mt. Gibbs – need to go back and hit this!

Mt. Lewis has some fun couloirs

hiking partners and Mono lake:

After arguing with a super serious German dude about what we should ski (I think he was having a hard time differentiating between the Sierras and the Alps), we settled on a SE facing couloir.  The rest of the aspects were not softening, even with ambient temperatures in the high 40s, because of a typical Sierra wind.  The snow was perfect corn in the couloir and as we skied further down, staying on those south and east facing aspects proved key to getting soft snow.  Here is my video footage from that day.

The next day we did a shorter hike up Mt. McGee.  The weather was not ideal – a mix of wind and snain, so we hiked up as far as we felt like and then skied down to go soak in the hot springs near Mammoth.

Pat and Louise on McGee

Spring time in the Eastern Sierras is always fun and with so many mountains to ski, it can be hard to leave.  We returned to Tahoe in time to catch Yonder Mountain String Band at Montbleu and celebrate Pat’s birthday.  Luckily, I’m returning to the Eastside in less than a week to start the Sierra High Route… which will probably have to be a multiple part blog post.

After a miracle March that brought upwards of 23 feet of snow to some Tahoe resorts, it went from winter to spring in about one day.  Sunday we were skiing powder and by Tuesday we were riding our bikes in shorts.  Record snowfall gave way to record highs.  Reports from the backcountry were not good – the lack of cool temperatures at night meant that the snow was not setting up.  We decided to check it out for ourselves and were treated to some calf deep mank during an after work hike.  We were also treated to amazing views and this beautiful sunset.

The sub-par skiing combined with the wet slide avalanche danger that was crushing California SUVs chased us back to riding bikes and skiing at the resort.

But today we woke up to a frozen snowpack and we decided it was time to go harvest some corn!  Being the first true spring hike of this year, we lamented forgetting things like ski crampons, but without too much of a struggle, we made it to the top of Mt. Tallac – a Tahoe classic.  Never a lack of great views:

We soaked up the sun on the summit enjoying a perfect windless day.  A long run down a south-facing bowl reminded me how much I love spring skiing in the Sierras.  The turns were as effortless as skiing powder. 

We hiked back up to get a second helping of delicious corn and I headed home to walk the dog and soak up the rest of the afternoon sun.  With the ample snowpack, we should be skiing well into July in the Sierras and with long spring days, the possibilities are endless.

When Daylight Savings rolls around we trade dawn patrols for happy hour skiing.  The extra hour of light after work makes it a fun thing to look forward to.  When the first happy hour came on Monday, March 14th, the weather didn’t really feel like cooperating.  At lake level it was pouring rain.  Intrepid, this all girls team was going skiing!  We optimistically voiced “it will be snowing at the pass.”  Well, it was still raining!  HA!  So, we starting hiking anyway thinking that it would at least be snow up top and as soon as we started skinning, the rain turned to snain, then snow!  The ski down wasn’t amazing, but it was much faster snow than we expected.  We had a great time rocking out up top to our favorite artist Rihanna and splitting one Mike’s Hard Limeade…  just to make sure everyone knows we are girls. 

There is some pretty fun skiing right next to everyone’s favorite dawn patrol spot:

The snow was really good on Thursday at Kirkwood, so I was motivated to get out again before work on Friday.  We met at 5:30 AM and hiked up Jake’s Peak.  We were surprised to see how few people had skied Jakes since it is one of the more popular BC hikes in Tahoe.

Beautiful view in the early morning light

Steep skin per usual

View from the top at 7 AM

The skiing was, well, amazing.  Both of us felt it was the best snow we’ve ever skied Jakes in.  The Tahoe “hero snow” from the day before had dried out with the cold temps overnight and skied like a foot of fluff!  We really only crossed each other’s tracks and we found a really fun kicker.  Here is the POV:

I’ve been skiing resort more than usual this year to try to get better at skiing.  Yesterday before work, we climbed and skied Tallac, a Tahoe classic and it felt great to be back in the backcountry.  We wanted to scare ourselves a bit and ski the hanging snowfield to the chute seen in the middle of this photo. 

It isn’t particularly difficult terrain, but the 100′ cliff at the bottom makes you ski pretty cautiously.  Fun times before work!

At the top at 8AM:

Here is some of my GoPro footage: