MAKE TAHOE DEEP AGAIN ~ 2016/17 OFISHUL SNOW/FOOD/WHINE & STOKE THREAD

[GiBo]

I don't think forestdale is open at all because it immediately climbs to ~9k feet

road conditions are here but haven't been updated since 6/9:
http://www.alpinecountyca.gov/index.aspx?NID=176

Ya, was hoping to just get up it a ways to camp. I know some other spots lower I'll have to go to.

[Paul Blart]

4th of July chutes are still holding some pretty damn good snow

[mcski]

Did you bike up?

[dookeyXXX]

4th of July chutes are still holding some pretty damn good snow

Road still gated @ 89? Or is the paved road open?
If not, is the road still gated/locked across the river?
Regardless of the answers to the above questions, did you have skin in or did you bootpack or dry hike?
inquiring minds wish to know!


Obviously, from your picture, you dropped the chute from the top. How is/are the rest of the bowl(s) and the other chutes?

[Paul Blart]

The first gate into the canyon off of 89 is open but the second gate is still closed. I just parked right over the river/bridge at the second gate and biked in from there. I stopped at the first sign of snow patches and started to boot pack for a little bit before switching to skinning. Realistically if I just walked the bike over those first few snow patches I could have biked for another half mile or so before skinning. I skinned up to the flattish plateau area at the base of the chutes and then just followed the cliff section from east to west until I found a dry opening and boot packed up over some loose rock and vegetation.

[dookeyXXX]

The first gate into the canyon off of 89 is open but the second gate is still closed. I just parked right over the river/bridge at the second gate and biked in from there. I stopped at the first sign of snow patches and started to boot pack for a little bit before switching to skinning. Realistically if I just walked the bike over those first few snow patches I could have biked for another half mile or so before skinning. I skinned up to the flattish plateau area at the base of the chutes and then just followed the cliff section from east to west until I found a dry opening and boot packed up over some loose rock and vegetation.

nice.

i usually enter from the plateau/bowl at the bottom of the chutes when there is less snow and you can drive all the way to the top of Barker Pass...much quicker than hiking the Ellis Peak Trail all the way to the ridge.

did you hit this today or yesterday?

[Paul Blart]

I hit this yesterday, the snow is definitely melting fast. I have no idea how the forest service judges which roads can be opened or not but they still have a snow line starting around 7200 depending on the aspect of the road. Once all that melts there are still a bunch of trees and other debris they'll need to remove before opening the gate.

Just for reference .. Red is where I stopped biking, blue is where I could've biked too had I walked the bike past the first few snow patches. Snow on the road get's patchy after the blue spot but becomes a solid pack once you get up towards the next switchback.

[dookeyXXX]

^sweet.
danke gracias for the beta.

In other news, heard that the Rose Chutes are still skiing nicely, as long as you hit them early morning.

[mcski]

Great beta. Thx!

[thudder]

In other news, heard that the Rose Chutes are still skiing nicely, as long as you hit them early morning.

Let's get 'em next weekend if you're in town.

Did Yellowjacket laps this Saturday and last at Rose. Coverage was primo top to bottom last Saturday, but close to burnt out at the top today.

Dropped in at 9am both days, snow was creamy. Looking up Yellowjacket today:



Beehive looks like it still has coverage top to bottom and could hold for another several days.

[GiBo]

Guess I'll answer my own questions.

Forestdale is open. Blue lakes is open. Don't know how far as I didn't go too far up either.

Snow was good on Roundtop. Getting small cups, but not bad. Can still skin from about Frog, but doesn't look like for long. Saw a guy who did to crescent. Said it was marginal in there.

[bodywhomper]

Anybody gonna see sambada today?

Per wednesday reporting in the Nevada county peeps FB page, which is only sometimes useful/accurate, you can drive to Jackson meadows. Hennessy (sp?) pass road is not drivable all the way through. There's still snow blocking meadow lake road and others in the area at that elevation with northern aspects. I assume people have seen that access to bowman lake and that general area should not be from highway 20 due to a damage on bowman lake road at the canyon creek crossing.

Anybody have info on the elevation of the skeeter hatch. Heard serene lake was all good. We were at feeley lake yesterday and have more skeeters at 2600ft than we found up there.

[emcee]

Guess I'll answer my own questions.

Forestdale is open. Blue lakes is open. Don't know how far as I didn't go too far up either.

Snow was good on Roundtop. Getting small cups, but not bad. Can still skin from about Frog, but doesn't look like for long. Saw a guy who did to crescent. Said it was marginal in there.

Alpine County website updated again, blue lakes road open to faith Valley but not all the way to deadwood peak:

http://www.alpinecountyca.gov/index.aspx?NID=176

If anybody ends up in the cirque or kirkwood crest please snap a shot of the deadwood bowl!

[G]

Anyone lose a shovel? I found one near carson pass.

[dookeyXXX]

just got back from Castle Peak.
took me roughly 6 hours round trip.
I started hiking around 7 am.
i lost close to 40-minutes trying to locate a river crossing and probably another 30-40 mins boulder and bushwhacking (the bushes whacked me good).
i was aiming for the 4 SE facing strips that you see when driving westbound on 80.
my plan was to ski the two furthermost strips (the ones far looker's right).
when i finally got to the bottom of the snow, somewhere just after 10am, to my surprise, there was a couple there, ready to skin up. i hollered and waved at them and asked if they had already skied the furtherest right strip. the dude of the couple answered, "No, it looks pretty rotten" (plus I had seen that there was a waterfall running underneath it), then he turned away and they proceeded to skin up without another word or glance my way.
i dry hiked the ridge next to them and got to the top roughly at the same time as they did. as they began heading to the furthest looker's right strip I remarked, "Seems like we had the same idea". The woman of the couple completely ignored me and the dude just said "Looks like it." Due to their somewhat stand-offish nature, I opted to ski the strip they had just skinned up, thinking that they would probably hit the one they were headed to and then come over to the one I was about to ski, given the lateness of the day and the increasing heat.
I banged out 2 laps and they never showed up, which led me to believe that they summited and probably hit the N facing backside (Coon Canyon).
on my hike out i ended up inadvertanly following their trail part-way (thought their footprints in the snow were mine, until they separted into two distinct paths) and it became obvious that they had entered from either the PCT area over by Boreal or the westbound rest stop on 80 (I, on the other hand, entererd from Castle Peak road proper).
i was kinda bummed that they weren't at all talkative--I didn't want to ski with them or have apres drinks with them-- i really just would have appreciated swapping some beta with them in regards to approaches.
gonna have to give them a fail/zero on the patch-skiing camaraderie scale.

that said, the snow I got was good snow, and I didn't schuss my first run until a bit after 11am. No sun-cups, just smooth soft-serve.

Andesite is kinda burnt, as are the strips just under the ramparts on the SW facing aspects of Castle Peak. Imagine the backside (Coon Canyon) might still be good.

In regards to the approach, if you come in from Castle Peak turn-off, you're gonna have to go to the second meadow and the first one has no easy crossing (unless you want to wade through knee deep water or brought a pair of waders). Second meadow still has a thick snow bridge and then you can more or less stumble your way onto the Donner Lake Rim Trail.

[emcee]

great trip report.

I'm just glad "ramparts" is turning in to a common term to describe this zone

[dookeyXXX]

great trip report.

I'm just glad "ramparts" is turning in to a common term to describe this zone

did i steal that from you?

i def stole it from someone on here. but it's fitting, given the name Castle Peak and all.

[retsalb]

Small world,

I apologize I didn't not mean to be unfriendly. Mostly, I assumed we were both going to the North side of Castle and would cross paths again at the choke further up. As a frequent beneficiary of conditions reports here, allow me to share some beta of my own.

We parked at the I-80 rest area and followed the Warren Lake Trail towards the south facing snow patches on Castle Peak. The trail is quite hard to follow in some places as there is a lot of snow in the densely forested areas. After a little more than a mile on along the Warren Lake Trail we veered left and cut over to the snow patch extending down the gully. If you are look up from the interstate we took the middle of the three largest snow patches although the left most one, the main corn run people access from the rest area, would be a good option too. We started skinning around 7,700ft and only had to walk between a few snow patches lower down.

There is still an absurd amount of snow on the top plateau east of Castle peak as well as in the north bowl and it is skiing quite nicely. The objective of the day, beyond skiing was to try and find a ski pole my buddy lost back in there on March 2nd. We skied one the north facing gullies closer to the actual summit of Castle Peak along that ridge and it was great. Considering how prevalent the sun cups have become, they were pretty minimal and had softened nicely. There was also a very nice absence of rockfall in the that back bowl, I think I am still picking rocks out of my skis after skiing the Y-couloir on Levitt Peak down on Sonora Pass last weekend.

We descended the back side around 11:30 and didn't set off any real sloughs or loose wet slides even on the steepest stuff. As we got the bottom, low and beyond the lost pole had just melted out, probably in the last week. There was still a little snow arch over part of it. Not too bad for nearly 4 months later.

We exited via the aforementioned left most snow patch on the south face, which did take us closer to the car, but involved a bit more bush-whacking and route findings. Pick your poison I guess.

We were nicely surprised at how good the skiing was and will definitely return in the near future. While we couldn't actually see much of those north chutes coming off the summit Castle proper, I bet they would still be in great shape. To access those I would probably ski that north bowl and then boot up them. You could hike up the summit of Castle Peak via the summer trail from the Boreal exit, and that ridge is fairly melted out, but that could entail a fair amount more walking than skiing. The skiing is still great so go out there and get it.

[Fish Rider]

just got back from Castle Peak.
took me roughly 6 hours round trip.
I started hiking around 7 am.
i lost close to 40-minutes trying to locate a river crossing and probably another 30-40 mins boulder and bushwhacking (the bushes whacked me good).
i was aiming for the 4 SE facing strips that you see when driving westbound on 80.
my plan was to ski the two furthermost strips (the ones far looker's right).
when i finally got to the bottom of the snow, somewhere just after 1`1am, to my surprise, there was a couple there, ready to skin up. i hollered and waved at them and asked if they had already skied the furtherest right strip. the dude of the couple answered, "No, it looks pretty rotten" (plus I had seen that there was a waterfall running underneath it), then he turned away and they proceeded to skin up without another word or glance my way.
i dry hiked the ridge next to them and got to the top roughly at the same time as they did. as they began heading to the furthest looker's right strip I remarked, "Seems like we had the same idea". The woman of the couple completely ignored me and the dude just said "Looks like it." Due to their incredibly stand-offish nature, I opted to ski the strip they had just skinned up, thinking that they would probably hit the one they were headed to and then come over to the one I was about to ski, given the lateness of the day and the increasing heat.
I banged out 2 laps and they never showed up, which led me to believe that they summited and probably hit the N facing backside (Coon Canyon).
on my hike out i ended up inadvertanly following their trail part-way (thought their footprints in the snow were mine, until they separted into two distinct paths) and it became obvious that they had entered from either the PCT area over by Boreal or the westbound rest stop on 80 (I, on the other hand, entererd from Castle Peak road proper).
i was kinda bummed that they weren't at all talkative--I didn't want to ski with them or have apres drinks with them-- i really just would have appreciated swapping some beta with them in regards to approaches.
gonna have to give them a fail/zero on the patch-skiing camaraderie scale.

that said, the snow I got was good snow, and I didn't schuss my first run until a bit after 11am. No sun-cups, just smooth soft-serve.

Andesite is kinda burnt, as are the strips just under the ramparts on the SW facing aspects of Castle Peak. Imagine the backside (Coon Canyon) might still be good.

In regards to the approach, if you come in from Castle Peak turn-off, you're gonna have to go to the second meadow and the first one has no easy crossing (unless you want to wade through knee deep water or brought a pair of waders). Second meadow still has a thick snow bridge and then you can more or less stumble your way onto the Donner Lake Rim Trail.

Not tahoe but did No name on Sonora lots Of suncups? Leavitt lake jeep road still gated. What's the Approach rn?


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[dookeyXXX]

^thanks for the beta.
out of curiosity, what time did y'all start hiking from the rest stop?

[retsalb]

^thanks for the beta.
out of curiosity, what time did y'all start hiking from the rest stop?

We started around 8:45 or 9.

[Ottime]

Alpine County website updated again, blue lakes road open to faith Valley but not all the way to deadwood peak:

http://www.alpinecountyca.gov/index.aspx?NID=176

If anybody ends up in the cirque or kirkwood crest please snap a shot of the deadwood bowl!

I'm hoping to be atop the Cirque Friday morning. Can you see deadwood from there? Dunno if I've ever looked. That would be an interesting mission.

[~mikey b]

Not tahoe but did No name on Sonora lots Of suncups? Leavitt lake jeep road still gated. What's the Approach rn?


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Look at the Sonora Pass thread.

[dookeyXXX]

Not tahoe but did No name on Sonora lots Of suncups? Leavitt lake jeep road still gated. What's the Approach rn?

Look at the Sonora Pass thread.

methinks that Fish Rider got his thumbs crossed and that his post should have read:
"Not Tahoe, but I did No Name on Sonora and it had lots of suncups. Leavitt Lake jeep road is still gated.
What's the approach mileage on the Castle Peak trek you did today."

but then I'm just guessing.

as for the Castle Peak approach mileage for the SE facing strips, my best guess is around 3+ miles, probably leaning more towards the + end (that's gauging on how long it takes me to get to Roundtop Lake, which is 3 miles 1-way and usually takes me an hour or so). Problem right now with the Castle Peak approaches is that there's still a great deal of snow on the ground, so sometimes you're on a well-worn trail and the rest of the time you're bushwhacking and trompling off-trail, which, with all the boulders and thick brush, can add considerable time to one's hike.

[~mikey b]

No he wants to know about the walkies up LL Rd.