To hell with it. I'm just going to periodically put my Eastern Sierra TRs here so that I can find them without having to search through various threads.
January 2018
Let's start by comparing January 2017 . . .
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. . . with January 2018.
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It felt like November.
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Knowing that conditions weren't great, I got impatient and made an ill-fated attempt to bag Feather as a solo overnighter.
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Still, I got some much needed tent time.
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Sadly, I didn't make it to Feather or even Royce Lakes. Around 10,800, everything was whomping and fracturing no matter which way I went. It was unnerving. There was a facet layer about 12-16" below surprisingly decent powder. So, I cut my losses and turned tail. My campsite is below.
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March 2018
After borderline despair, March delivered a prodigious amount of snow to the Sierra. It went from abjectly terrible to okay and almost average.
whatsupdoc and I made our first trip down and settled on the north side of Basin Mountain. (I don't know why the Buttermilks area is not a national park, although I'm grateful for the easy access.)
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Our almost random choice ended up being a stunning, sustainedly steep 2,000'+ couloir with a cool choke about a 2/3rds of the way down.
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It was firm but edgeable. Not a place to fall though.
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