Lassen / Shasta Conditions Anyone?

[SchralphMacchio]

Anyone know what's up with point forecasts on the NWS page? I'm only able to get zone area forecasts now. Trying to see how nasty tomorrow's disturbance is really going to be ... methinks it will be okay for Lassen.

[Greydon Clark]

Greydon friend, bachelor is 6 hours closer too. Been haunting the fun of bend too, redding not so much.

I hope to hit Bend on the way back... I'm going to ski Shasta Wednesday, does anyone have a recommendation for a non-summit ski? Are Sun Bowl, Powder Bowl, and Old Ski Bowl still have snow?

Also, any info on mcloughlin or Lassen is appreciated.

[Dhelihiker]

I hope to hit Bend on the way back... I'm going to ski Shasta Wednesday, does anyone have a recommendation for a non-summit ski? Are Sun Bowl, Powder Bowl, and Old Ski Bowl still have snow?

Also, any info on mcloughlin or Lassen is appreciated.

Grey butte, skin up toward snowbowl and make a hard left.

[brutah]

Also, any info on mcloughlin is appreciated.

called the fs office a few days back. they said the road to the fourmile campground should go, though due to the early time in the season they hadn't had anyone officially travel it yet.

[thefrush]

Looking to spend April 9-12 in the Shasta area and do some skiing. Never skied up there and wouldn't mind a partner(s) if anyone else is around. Would love to make a summit ski attempt if conditions and weather allow.

[splat]

Y'all know about Drake's Bed hot springs on Lassen?

[Tahoe Bromide]

PAC NW volcanoes skiing treasure trove.....

http://www.skimountaineer.com/Cascad...ascadeSki.html

If anyone knows this guy, please tell him I said thank you. His site kicks ass.

[Lone Star]

Drakesbad is pretty far from the peak and accessed out of Chester instead of from near Mineral. Their conditions page says the Warner Valley/Drakesbad road is closed but I imagine it's clear and not too long out from opening....

http://www.nps.gov/lavo/planyourvisi...conditions.htm
(They're aiming for a late April opening for the main park highway.....ouch)

[splat]

Thanks, LS. Was at another hot spring yesterday and we were swapping info. Guess I coulda googled it.
The park looks so dry they're prolly not bothering opening the road until they get staffed up.

[SchralphMacchio]

Lassen updates:
-road plowing from South visitors center starts Monday
-road is still not bikeable, even if doing bike portaging over snow patches - it's 1 meter deep in the road at Diamond Peak
-South faces of Ski Heil and Lassen are skiable, but realllly thin. South side of Diller long gone. West face of Lassen thin and going fast, northwest face still holding.
-Lassen east bowl skiable and well covered, but the skiers left chutes are getting bony
-NE face is still fat and great skiing down to treeline, about a 25 minute hike from Devestated gate to skins on, and I'm sure that will be more like 35+ minutes next weekend
-Amazing transitioning windbuff and corn on north and east faces ... Skiing SUPER smooth and silky, almost still wintery today. Far skiers right of Lassen NE bowl is a bit too sastrugied for my taste.
-Skied 2 laps on Ski Heil north and 1 on Ski Heil south yesterday, all laps amazing with wide open all day corn windows. Did the main spine line above the gut of Lassen NE today and it was transitioning windbuff, I was even racing my slough down the line ...

The getting is still out there to be gotten, go forth and shred!!!

Hoping for a big fat H over Shasta next weekend, if so I'll be up there.

[~mikey b]

Thanks Alex.

[TEXASS]

I was up at Lassen Saturday . I can vouch fro what Alex said. Shasta was good on Sunday. Maybe the hottest day I have even had on snow. Looked at The Thumb Rock cutes at 3:30. Too late and too warm for My taste. Rode down corn heaven to the car from thumb rock. Great corn, not grabby .
Had our eyes on the trinity chutes Monday but it stayed hard above Helen even after 1pm. Pulled the plug for another 4k of corn. Not a bad weekend.

You can still skin from Bunny Flat and ride back to the car

[jimw]

Last Sunday was THE day to be at Shasta. It was perfect corn, all day, 12k to the bottom. Met up with TEX and Buffy. It was kinda rough leaving Santa Cruz at 10 PM on Sat, I got a couple hours sleep and we started hiking. Turns out that's not the best way to acclimate! There were tons of people there, and it was HOT. But the snow was great, and there's so much room there that it didn't feel crowded at all. Looks like they'll be getting another refresh starting this weekend.

Here are some pics.

Looking good at the bottom.





Got to Helen Lake and chilled for a while.



We ran into the one and only Ed, who is 70-something years young. I hope I'm shredding at that age. Hell, I hope I *make* it to that age! Here he is at Helen Lake with Robin and Linda.



Buffy was feeling the elevation too. She had to take a quick nap.



Did I mention it was HOT?? At this point my thermometer said 80 degrees in the sun. Ray came up with a novel way to get some airflow going. He tried skinning like this too, but that didn't work out so well.



We wanted to get up to Thumb Rock and check out the chutes on the backside. Buffy pulled the plug partway up. Ray and I finally got there, but the last few hundred feet of skinning changed to nasty icy schnarbles, as Buffy would have put it. It was, uh, character building skinning.

The views once we got there were awesome though!







We looked in, and the snow actually looked great. I've done these chutes one time before. It's hard to find good snow in there. Problem was though it was getting pretty late, and getting out involves at minimum a skin up to Shastarama point for a run down into the old ski bowl. We reluctantly decided to bail and go back down the gulch. We did see two ski tracks in there on some awesome lines.

Line 1:



Line 2:



Oh well. Next time.

Trinity Chutes were looking awesome too. We saw some folks coming down there, and several folks down the main chute between Trinity and lookers left end of Red Banks, and that looked great too. Pretty much everyone was hooting it up all the way down. Well except for the people trying to glissade down with crampons (seriously, WTF, I always see a bunch of people doing that!).



Thumbs up for Thumb rock! Lassen visible in the background to TEX's right, he was there the day before.



Getting ready to make the first turn of the "season". Yep, FIRST turn this year. It's been that bad (among other things getting in the way).



What followed was some of the best corn I can remember! Pretty much all the way back to the car. It was awesome.

Back in the parking lot, we ran into JayTe.



Naturally, it turns out those tracks in the Thumb Rock chutes were from him and his buddy Mike. He said it took him like 3 hours to skin up to Thumb Rock. I wanted to kick him in the balls.

I brought the bike along too, because I had heard that the "entertainer" mountain bike trail was in great shape as well. I figured, I'm gonna be there, might as well wear myself out! TEX graciously drove the van back into town, and I had a great ride down. The upper part was really raw (lots of trees down), but the dirt was primo. There are some fun stunts along the way too.



There is this one section called "the wash". It goes down where this big mudslide happened years ago, and you're pretty much riding on rock for the whole section.



There are some full-on DH sections in there, it's pretty gnarly.



Great views down lower. Hey I was just up there!



They've built some great trails down lower heading back into town that I haven't been on before. Overall a great ride.

Oh wait, I forgot this was a ski thread. I guess that's what happens when you're living in CA this year!

[~mikey b]

Nice.

Haven't run into Ed in a couple years. A hero.

[Ottime]

Man you guys got me excited. Hoping for some refresh, as I have at least tree weeks to wait until I can get up there.

[w j b]

Always tons of stoke in your TR's Jim. Glad you finally got some turns under your belt this year

[SchralphMacchio]

Huge refresh, current forecast is now for 2.5' on Shasta through Wednesday!

[Incalescent]

omg omg omg Jimw went snowboarding omg omg omg!
Glad you got out Jim. Thanks for those Thumb Rock chute shots, good beta.

[gimpy]

Yeah Jim!!!!!!

Headin up there tomoro for a couple days as thurs and fri look promising. Hoping there is a good foot + up there so I might be able to keep up w Jt while he is breaking trail in front
It's actually snowing all the way down into town so should be some light fluff before the wind and sun get it

[kidwoo]

But.

That's not.......

That's not the powerhouse chutes......

And it's nowhere near the whoa nelli deli.......


How did that even happen? Is that all CGI?

[Huck Pitueee]

Hey! I was planning to get the the visitor center at around 8:00 Thursday. Does anyone know the snow totals from the last storms?

[TEXASS]

As bad as this season has been. Why ask ? It's snow. And it goes. Go get some

But. Call the Fifth Season snow report. They usually are quick on an update

[Huck Pitueee]

Thanks! ^

[SchralphMacchio]

Anyone know if the gate is open to Devestated Area? It was closed yesterday.

[SchralphMacchio]

Lassen report from Saturday 4/11:
* Road from S visitor center is open to Sulphurworks, plowed to Helen Lake and cleared of major rockfall - I'd expect an opening to Bumpass lot imminently
* Devestated gate was closed Saturday morning but opened in the afternoon
* Weather sucked up high on Saturday, cloud deck stayed on the upper half of Lassen pretty much all day to make zero vis with a nonstop west wind 20-35 mph down to 8500' ... went up the S ridge hoping to top out and drop NE face but got turned around 9500' due to cloud deck steadily lowering
* turns down the main E bowl off the S ridge were sweet, very soft skin of crust on wind-textured pow ... maybe 8-10" new snow in the main bowl with isolated pockets of 18"
* Pretty much all of the new snow on south and west aspects is gone below 8500', and crusted over above that
* A lot of stuff got hit by sun and wind earlier in the week ... there were isolated wind protected pockets of pow on N faces but already a semi-supportable to supportable crust on a lot of E faces or lower elevation N faces
* Neutrino went down (not my party) and the report was 8" of fresh, with an edgeable crust underneath

Hopefully a bunch of people scored big on the NE face on Sunday ... bluebird, no wind, and I anticipated some nice pockets of windbuff and pow off the top of the mountain. I only had one day and unfortunately the weather did not cooperate on that day. We took what we could get and explored the glacier canyon at the top of Hat Creek and a crusty couloir off the east ridge. Made for a fun multi-activity day of biking, skinning, skiing, cramponing, and scraping crust!