Eastside Conditions Thread

[AKbruin]

Sunday Part 1

Sunday, with its fair weather and hopefully slightly more stabilized avy conditions, was to be our big day. And it was a big day. We settled on Birch Mountain (13,609'). Birch is normally a spring tour, but I'm not sure anyone has done it as a spring tour since 2011, the last descent snow year in the southern Sierra.

4:45 a.m. We scouted out the road situation the afternoon before, after we had skied Red. It was clear to about 5,700', or about 2 miles and 700 vertical feet to the normal trailhead. Headlamps were unnecessary given the full moon. Because there was a cloud cover the day before, this was our fist view of Birch, whose summit is about 7.5 miles and 8,000 vertical fee above us.


We made good progress climbing up the frozen gullies in the moonlight.


There she is! You can't see the true summit, which is another 1,000 vertical feet above the east-face chutes.


Tinemaha looks so damn rad. It looks like a gnarlier Elderberry Canyon mated with Esha's summit. Add it to my forever-growing eastside tick list.


iPhone panorama feature from about 8,000.


We made pretty pretty swift progress for the first 5,000'. We had lunch at 10,700' at 9:30 a.m. With only 3,000 vertical feet to go, we felt good. But at about 11,000, as we were crossing from Birch's eastern flank to the southeast face below the summit, we hit about 1,000 vertical feet of steep, spirit-crushing postholing that varied from crotch-deep stair-master to 6" of fluff on ice. (We stupidly left our boot crampons behind.) I'm guessing it took two or more hours to do that section.


Thankfully, after a moraine crossing, it led Birch's southeast face, which offered sublime skinning all the way to the summit. Here's Franz with Tinemaha on the left and Split, looking very angry, on the right.


Franz now lives in Connecticut whose highest peak, Google informs me, is 2,316', which is about 10,000' lower than where Franz is in this photo. But he nevertheless gutted out a huge day at elevation. Props! By the way, that banana-shaped line on Tinemaha in the background looks epic.

[AKbruin]

Sunday (Part 2)

We reached the summit around 2:30 p.m., a little behind schedule but still fine to get back to the truck before sunset. This photo is looking at the Palisades, somewhere else I really want to ski. I'd like to try the Thumb (huge snowfield just left of center) at some point too.


Christ, enough scenics already, right? Sorry, I did that annoying thing where one takes 100 photos on the way up and 10 on the way down. All the action-shots are from the southeast face. Everything else was in the shade by the time we descended.


So, the thing is, the snow off the summit was excellent. There was some wind-texture on the surface, but it was shin- to knee-deep powder. It was consistent and felt bomber.


Franz's descent attire is made up of four loud colors none of which compliment each other in the slightest. But they make for good photoslutting.


Oh look, Franz took a photo of me!


Split Mountain looks upon our descent down a moderate giant and finds it wanting.


Another 6,000 vertical feet to the car from here.


Back at the truck 12 hours later at 5 p.m.


Here's my breakdown:
13,600-9,500: Mostly great pow (especially off the summit) with some variability.
9,500-8,500: We got stuck on a bad aspect with a death crust.
8,500-7,000: Refrozen boilerplate that made for easy and efficient skiing.
7,000-5,700: Soft with only a little sage-wacking to dirt road with occasional snow drifts.
15.6 miles and right around 8,000 vertical feet for the day.

[GurmB]

Nicely done. Way to persevere through the post holes.

[BFD]

this thread making TGR great again

[bodywhomper]

thank you for sharing!

[mcski]

Fantastic. Sorry to hear Klammer is no longer a east side regular. He has put out a lot of good TRs. Good work again!

[BGnight]

Great beta pics AK!!
That NW facing line on Tinemaha is super tasty looking. Tasty enough that it might make my list for Tues/Wed.
I'll be posting some beta pics of my own on Thursday.

[somethingclever...]

Awesome looking day out on Birch AK!

On a separate note does anyone have a good guess on how far up the canyon the Lundy road may be plowed? Last winter around this time it was good to the resort but obviously we are playing a different game now. Thanks in advance.

[AKbruin]

On a separate note does anyone have a good guess on how far up the canyon the Lundy road may be plowed? Last winter around this time it was good to the resort but obviously we are playing a different game now. Thanks in advance.

The turnoff from 395 was at least plowed when I passed on Saturday morning but I couldn't tell how far. If you're thinking Gilcrest, I'd think that even if the road were closed, it'd only be a 30-45 minute skin. The snow in that area around Mono Lake looked pretty wind-affected (more so than down south) on Saturday, although that doesn't necessarily mean the north-facing stuff inside would be bad.

[hutash]

Once again you guys crushed, excellent job.

Can't but think that if you didn't stop to pee or eat lunch you could have been back at the car 8 minutes earlier

[whatsupdoc]

I decided to follow AKbruin's lead and head to Birch yesterday. Winds must have been somewhat active the night before (despite very calm winds all day) because we found no evidence at all of their skin track & very little evidence of their prior turns. That nice pow off of the summit was variable wind affect (2 nice turns, 1 crust turn type of thing). Found plenty of crust, a handful of really nice pow turns, a bit of decent corn down low, and a whole host of other variable snow. Still a hell of a day on such a big mountain.

I didn't take too many photos. My partner flew a speed wing off of the summit which led to me skiing solo. Here's a summit pano.

[SchralphMacchio]

epic goodness

Yeehaw!!!!
Don't forget about Franz's red eye back to CT!!!
You guys are monsters.

[Franz Klammer]

Many thanks again to AKBruin for breaking trail all weekend. I'm considering buying a hyperbaric oxygen tent so that I can keep up ... or (like in my good old Eastside Giant Slayer days) misanthropically shout at slower ascenders.

Great beta pics AK!!
That NW facing line on Tinemaha is super tasty looking. Tasty enough that it might make my list for Tues/Wed.
I'll be posting some beta pics of my own on Thursday.

I can't wait to see those photos!

[somethingclever...]

The turnoff from 395 was at least plowed when I passed on Saturday morning but I couldn't tell how far. If you're thinking Gilcrest, I'd think that even if the road were closed, it'd only be a 30-45 minute skin. The snow in that area around Mono Lake looked pretty wind-affected (more so than down south) on Saturday, although that doesn't necessarily mean the north-facing stuff inside would be bad.

I was thinking up towards dore and or lake Helen so it might be a bit more cumbersome to go up canyon if the roads closed. Thanks for the info.

[SchralphMacchio]

... misanthropically shout at slower ascenders.

But see, I have a technique for that. It's all about being so far behind you, AKB, mdquist and others that you guys can't actually shout at me!

Come back in the spring, I may be spending the last week in April on the eastside with my soon-to-be-wife right after the wedding.

[AKbruin]

Schralph: "What if instead of honeymooning in Bora Bora, we stay at a motel (or tent) near Bishop and I ski with my friends?"

Fiancée: ". . . ."

[Franz Klammer]

Other stuff that got skied today!

1) Giant Steps on Williamson: Morrison & Pondella
2) North Couloir on Tinemaha: Shelp & Molnar

Also, they had to call in a Blackhawk for a blown out knee on 3rd Pillar on Sunday.

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Awesome day out guys! Love the shots with Split in the distance.

[hoarhey]

Other stuff that got skied today!

1) Giant Steps on Williamson: Morrison & Pondella
2) North Couloir on Tinemaha: Shelp & Molnar

Also, they had to call in a Blackhawk for a blown out knee on 3rd Pillar on Sunday.

Pondella must love mt Williamson

I remember reading an article about him skiing that same line 7-8 years ago

[Franz Klammer]

Other stuff that got skied today!

1) Giant Steps on Williamson: Morrison & Pondella
2) North Couloir on Tinemaha: Shelp & Molnar

Also, they had to call in a Blackhawk for a blown out knee on 3rd Pillar on Sunday.

More awesomeness: Brennan Lagasse just informed that he skied Middle Palisade with Morrison on Tuesday and Giant Steps with Dosti on Wednesday.

[TahoeJ]

Schralph: "What if instead of honeymooning in Bora Bora, we stay at a motel (or tent) near Bishop and I ski with my friends?"

Fiancée: ". . . ."

Lol...

[whatsupdoc]

More awesomeness: Brennan Lagasse just informed that he skied Middle Palisade with Morrison on Tuesday and Giant Steps with Dosti on Wednesday.

God damn.

[Eastern Sierra Skier]

Just stopped at the corner of Ed Powers and 395 to watch the sunset. Grainy cell pic doesn't do it justice.

[LightRanger]

Whitney Portal Road smoked by rockfall:
http://www.inyosheriff.org/wp-conten...cy-WP-Road.pdf

Some drone footage on the CHP Bishop page on Facebook.

[AKbruin]

Conditions are extremely variable right now. Lots of windslaps [ETA: also known as "wind slabs"] on different aspects and mid-week slide debris everywhere.

Did Tioga area on Friday, where the winds were ripping off the top of the plateau. I'm guessing the wind-chill up there must have been -20F. All the chutes with cornices slide and I'm assuming the ones that did not are currently windslab landmines. That said, there was excellent powder below treeline. I'm guessing that everything above treeline will have a wind crust moving forward.

Pine Creek yesterday was also very cold (-10F with wind chill) and offered a top-to-bottom crust. Again, there was slide debris everywhere.

The good news is that coverage is still great.

Anybody wanna guess when 120 will open? I'm guessing the third week of May. It had at least a foot at the gate and probably several feet on it higher up, as well as a number of slides.