TR - Y Couloir Redux/Sonora 5/30/08

[Ottime]

WHEN Friday, May 30, 2008

WHERE Around Sonora Pass - Leavitt Peak and No Name Peak

WHO Snowranger & Ottime

WHY Fresh snow had fallen several days before. We were hoping to find perfectly set corn in the sun and powder in the shade....

WEATHER Mostly sunny, some mountain clouds. 28F in the morning rising to about 50F at 9500 ft. Light to no winds.

Woke up at 12:30am to leave Santa Cruz. We wanted a reasonably early start, and Snowranger was stuck in San Francisco without transportation. Option 1 - Pick him up in the Sunset. Option 2 - pick him up in Pleasanton at BART. The problem with Option 2 was that pick up would either be at 1am or 5:30am.

Snowranger was easy to find - he was the only soul on the street at 2am with ski gear. We headed up to Sonora and hit the pass around 6:15am with cool temperatures.

We headed out and started skinning to No Name. Snowranger leads the way.


It took us about an hour to turn the saddle. Making good time.


We got our first views of Leavitt and Y Couloir.

The snow on the way up was mostly crusty, but plenty of sugar snow crystals on top and almost powdery in the shaded locations. It was still cool so we pressed on.

We took the high road which required a lot of side hilling. In retrospect, it would have been better (easier) to ski down into the canyon and skin straight out and up.

About 2/3rds of the way there, we de-skinned and traversed. Ottime hit a higher line. As we began to skin again, Ottime looked down toward Snowranger


Good for Ottime, as Snowranger soon caught up of that light tele gear.



At the top Snowranger got to walking around and looking into different coolies. He wanted to hit this narrow one


But after the hike, Ottime wanted to jump and rip turns down the wider Y



Snowranger follows

And drops that knee

Go Snowranger Go


Further down, in the turn of the Y, Ottime scrubs some speed


And does a flyby


Snowranger leapfrogs...



Out onto the apron



And Ottime... sets up...

To go diving...


After which his right Duke releases, and the ski descends 300ft. Argh. The best snow was in the apron. The Y had varaibale conditions ranging from firm, to corn, to mank, to heavy powder. All in all, a fun ride.

Then the slog back to No Name.


The central chute looked creamy


Snowranger enters - "It is a bit bony"


Ottime opts for a different entrance - "Ha, no sharks"



Only to find some Whales


Once out on the apron, things got better

All the way to the road


All in all a good day and slog. The snow still needed a few days to set up into solid corn - only the top few inches of the fresh foot was melting/freezing. This made for some heavy and variable snow. Big turns was the call for the day. On the positive side - we were able to skin the entire way - no boot packing or post holing.

Broke my Sonora cherry and my TR cherry. Bigger pics next time...

[smuggs]

haha no sharks.....but found some whales....

[snowranger]

Ottime, nice TR. My memory is not as good as yours, but I do remember your 1-footed skiing down to retrieve that runaway ski. traverse, remove ski, switch to other foot, repeat. You left some pretty interesting tracks up there.

And I made that Couloir jump look less steep than it was.
I am still working off the sleep deprivation.

[Spark]

Some nice steep pics in there. Way to get after it!

Great first TR.

[buckethead]

nice pics and first TR Ot!
the snow may not have been perfect yet, but damn! i wish we had a fraction of that much left here in the east.
looks refreshing!

[Ottime]

Ottime, nice TR. My memory is not as good as yours, but I do remember your 1-footed skiing down to retrieve that runaway ski. traverse, remove ski, switch to other foot, repeat. You left some pretty interesting tracks up there.

Yes, I did 1 foot ski, as your skinned back up with my second.

The pics we took of those tracks just did not seem to come out well (at least on my screen). I can just imagine someone out on Saturday, looking from a distance, thinking - what the ??

[jfost]

you typed March 30th, but I'm assuming May 30th right!?! This is important as I may be out that way this weekend, and I wouldn't want to find no snow!!!

[AKbruin]

Excellent work, gentlemen. I wish I could have been there with you, but I was doing time in motion-practice hell.

Anybody considering Lassen this weekend?

[Ottime]

you typed March 30th, but I'm assuming May 30th right!?! This is important as I may be out that way this weekend, and I wouldn't want to find no snow!!!

Yes - May 30th. I would go in an edit, but that does not seem to be working right now. Will check later. There is plenty of snow out there, but you may not be able to skin the whole way by this weekend.

AKBruin - I can not do Lassen this weekend but am thinking about next weekend. I told Snowranger I was done, but now I am itching for more. So let me know. We may even want to take two cars to shuttle a bit.

[JrockSF]

Yes - May 30th. I would go in an edit, but that does not seem to be working right now. Will check later. There is plenty of snow out there, but you may not be able to skin the whole way by this weekend.

AKBruin - I can not do Lassen this weekend but am thinking about next weekend. I told Snowranger I was done, but now I am itching for more. So let me know. We may even want to take two cars to shuttle a bit.

Id be down for Lassen possibly next weekend. I have room driving from SF if anyone wanted to carpool?

[snowranger]

Down for Lassen one of these weekends.

Ottime, here are your one-legged ski tracks near the bottom. I think total climbing vertical for the tour was around 4500 feet.

[skier666]

Very nice gentlemen! Can you sense the jealously from the tone of my typing?

[snowranger]

Very nice gentlemen! Can you sense the jealously from the tone of my typing?

Yep, the Y is calling your name.

[Sinecure]

Nice TR guys. Thanks for the stoke.

[pogs4ever]

that's sweet! great TR! maybe its about time i pull the trigger on those AT bindings so i dont wuss out next season when all the action comes back around.

[snowranger]

There's still a couple more weeks to go. I'm thinking next weekend at Lassen.

[Ottime]

I'm 90% there for Lassen. Blister is healed - my wife is just having a hard time understanding the snow has not yet melted away...