Eastside Conditions Thread

[enlosandes]

Any of you guys have a feel for whats going on with the road to Mcgee Creek TH?

There is a big drift just below the first campgrounds with the wind deflectors.

[sfskier]

Just got back to SF last night from a few days on the east side. A few selected pics below (sorry for the rotated ones, I feel so inept). All pics (with captions/labels, rotated correctly) posted here:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskYZXi3X

Thursday:
After arriving at Lunday Dam at 2:00am, I bivvied in the car until morning. I skied the north face of Gilcrest Peak, which is a sweet, continuous 35-40 deg fall line snaking gully and face of 3,600' vert from summit to Lundy Lake. Perfect coverage starting right at the lake. Unfortunately the air was fairly cool and the winds were pretty consistent up high, so the upper half didn't soften, but the bottom half was nice. Drove to Bishop in the afternoon and scored a nice campsite in the freshly opened Big Trees campground up Bishop Creek.

Friday:
Was going to be coldest day in a while with high winds and I wanted to save some energy for the warmer weekend, so I didn't make any big plans. Went to Sabrina Lake to tour up toward George Lake ridge, but only made it up about 1,600' the lake due to various route finding and equipment mishaps, and some aches and pains I didn't want to exacerbate. As of 1:30 in the afternoon, east facing low elevation (9-10,000) was still mostly firm. Back at the campground that night, it was now fully packed with folks awaiting Fishmas. Also saw some Fish and Game folks dumping net-fulls of fish into the creek. Something about this dynamic of raising fish in pens and dumping them in creeks and lakes for people to catch just seems odd. Maybe it's just me. Friday night was cold, I think about 20 degrees at 7,000'.

Saturday-Sunday:
Toured from North lake trailhead up via Lamarck Col route to tag the Mt Lamarck summit, take pics of the awesome views (esp of Darwin and Mendel) and spent the night at about 10,700' on a nice knoll in "Lamarck Col Canyon" or whatever it's called. Sunday morning I opted to go for south-facing corn and headed back up in the direction of the Col to a south-facing knob at about 12,000' and headed down at 10:00am in perfect corn. Instead of taking the long flat slog back out to the road via Grass Lake and North Lake, I popped over through a saddle in the ridge and skiied a sweet south-facing gully with nice pitch in perfect spring snow down to shore of Sabrina Lake, whereupon I prevailed upon some departing ice fishermen to drive me the couple miles to my car at the North Lake turnoff.

My original ambition had been to ski Darwin, but my window for the trip didn't coincide with perfect weather and thus confidence in optimal conditions for skiing steep north faces after two days of cold temps and howling cold north winds, so I scaled way back. Darwin is lodged in my brain as my great white whale. Another year. Now I have photos of it to post in my office to stare at and get obsessed.

[fogey]

Just got back to SF last night from a few days on the east side. . . . .

Saturday-Sunday:
Toured from North lake trailhead up via Lamarck Col route to tag the Mt Lamarck summit, . . .

Sounds like a pretty good few days, even if you didn't get the whale. How'd you get from the North Lake turnoff to the trailhead? Was the North Lake road skiable? I'm thinking about heading that way in a week or two.

[enlosandes]

South Lake is open to Parchers as of this afternoon.

[sfskier]

Sounds like a pretty good few days, even if you didn't get the whale. How'd you get from the North Lake turnoff to the trailhead? Was the North Lake road skiable? I'm thinking about heading that way in a week or two.

I parked at the North Lake turnoff and walked most of the way up the way up the road until just a tad before the day use parking (see pics attached and on my Flickr stream). The road was alternating patchy snow and dry on the south facing slope until you round the bend and approach North Lake, where the road quickly transitioned to buried under several feet.

[whatsupdoc]

Anyone know how the S facing stuff in Lundy is holding up? specifically thinking of a Virginia lakes to Lundy shuttle to ski excelsior. Thanks.

[AKbruin]

Anyone know how the S facing stuff in Lundy is holding up? specifically thinking of a Virginia lakes to Lundy shuttle to ski excelsior. Thanks.

Ignore that terrible question and answer the following fantastic question: Anybody get on any mid-elevation north facing stuff?

[LightRanger]

Forecast for next week looks... interesting.

[gimpy]

Heh
That's the zone I'm gunnin for as well doc. Ive skied the s facing stuff off south peak/black ridge but never drained excelsior to Lundy from burro lake. Usually is pretty cooked by time Lundy opens to the end but was thinking this year might be the year.

Sooooo ignore akb's order to ignore docs question

B skied 3rd pillar today and it looked damn good

[meter-man]

B skied 3rd pillar today and it looked damn good

Booker the Dog? Damn, that guy gets around!

[B__]

[B__]

15 minute dry hike to a full VBowl

The mid-chute choke in Pillar was buried, fully, but be sure your boots are bucked tightly for the mandatory steep cornice drop, the current crux. There is no "convex rollover entrance." The top 25' is unavoidably steep both up and down.

The highway is cleared of much of the snow looking toward the pass but lots of rock removal is still going on

Dana (peak) lines are fat and clean, Solstice is ripe

[bodywhomper]

Nice!

Now known as "solstice bowl"

[SchralphMacchio]

Nice!

Now known as "solstice bowl"

That was my first thought too!
Unknown looks ridiculously wide, and I'd never noticed the line between Solstice and Unknown before ... looked at old pictures from previous trips to the area and that line never looked sane, now it looks beautiful!

[Greydon Clark]

Anyone know how the S facing stuff in Lundy is holding up? specifically thinking of a Virginia lakes to Lundy shuttle to ski excelsior. Thanks.

I skied from the dam yesterday and didn't go up canyon, but from where I was the south faces were cooked.

Also, it is fucking hot.

[hutash]

Wow, look how insanely fat Dana couloir is, there is a whole new entrance skiers left I have never seen before. Also, Solstice doesn't appear to have a cornice, anybody actually been up there?

[BGnight]

Didn't freeze worth a damn last night and probably not tonight either. Unsupportable snow at 11,200 at 9am. My two day mission turned into one. Gonna wait for powder. Corn sucks anyway.

Big drift in McGee creek got plowed a few hours ago so you should be able to park at the stables.

[kidwoo]

Didn't freeze worth a damn last night and probably not tonight either. Unsupportable snow at 11,200 at 9am.

Where were you?

[mr. hankey]

Originally Posted by whatsupdoc View Post

Anyone know how the S facing stuff in Lundy is holding up? specifically thinking of a Virginia lakes to Lundy shuttle to ski excelsior. Thanks.

Skiied S/E side of gilcrest last sunday, here's a pic of the S face of lundy:


Skiied the E/SE face/gully of gilcrest, which was perfect corn at ~11-11:30 ish. the NE side wasn't as good and definite wetslide potential on the choke. if you catch the final N face at the bottom of gilcrest, could ski to the car still. skinning up the warren canyon you have a 5 min walk till you hit snow from the Dam.
Gilcrest E/SE face:

Virginia lakes was "closed" but everyone was driving to the end of the plow (final turn at 9300ft), which gave a ~ 1 mile walk to the lakes or slightly shorter to Dunderberg. it was totally in striking distance, but we did lundy instead. I'd bet Vlakes is good to go this weekend, unless the giant snow bank collapses
Plenty of skiers and fishermen made the trek to the lakes last week.


Here's a pic looking north from McGee to Esha, etc:

Also did mini Morrison - 10 miin walk to the car through the brush at the bottom.
could ski to 5 min walk to the car on McGee.

[mr. hankey]

Doh! wrong pic for virgina lakes snowbank

[mr. hankey]

one more from the previous weekend- we skied crater crest. about a 5 min walk from the neighborhood road to snow(15 min to the car). Could ski off the summit but there was a 20ft section peppered with rocks. Campground was snow free. again, that was 4/21, so I'm sure it's moved up a bit.

[whatsupdoc]

Thanks Mr. Hankey, looks skiable.

[whatsupdoc]

We took a rest day after Ritter to give our sore feet a break. Saturday we skied Basin. Short 10 minute walk to snow from the Horton Lakes TH gate. The Buttermilks Road is in really bad shape, at least until the Horton Lakes turnoff.

Dry hiking:




Skinning:



Upper Bowl:



Booting:



Humphreys from the top of the line:



Kindergarten, Checkered Demon, and Emerson from the notch:

[whatsupdoc]

The upper bowl was still a bit firm when we skied it, but everything below the moraine was perfect corn all the way to the car.

Skiing:








Back at our shoes:



Hiking out:

[whatsupdoc]

Sunday we were joined by AKbruin, B__, and one other, to make a group of 5. Skied the SE chute on Baldwin. We were able to park at the campground along McGee Rd. As mentioned, it's since been cleared to at least the pack station. Dry hiked for maybe a couple of miles from the car before transitioning to skis.

Transitioning to skis:


Skin track:


AKbruin skinning to Baldwin:


The hotter than hell booter:


Nearing the top:


AKbruin topping out:


Views from the notch: