Eastern Sierra Backcountry Thread 2020-21

[whatsupdoc]

And the rest from Pika Peak:

[stealurface831]

excellent stoke

[gimpy]

Sweet doc+++

[TahoeBC]

Debrief of the Punta Bardini avalanche back in January.

The guy caught and injured literally wrote the book on skiing the eastern Sierra.

[powdork]

I'm sure it gets informative at some point, but 25 minutes in and I somehow feel like i've wasted way more than 25 minutes.

[mr. hankey]

Awesome pics and TR as always Whatsupdoc!

[powdork]

If you start at the 38 minute mark you can skip much of the preamble

[jorion]

Can’t compete with the Doc but the skiing was incredible this weekend. No pics but Bardini main chute on Saturday was probably my favorite run of the year. Yesterday caught the Bloody Couloir in incredible conditions. Turned around 450’ below the top after we felt a strange shift in the snowpack while booting and a foot deep slab pulled off readily in a quick pit. Somebody else skied it after us from the ridge and a couple other guys rode the y chutes with no issue. Somewhat disappointed not to be able to ski from the top when we had those conditions and were strong enough to have topped out but whatever, still a phenomenal day.

[AKbruin]

Great stuff, jorion and whatsupdoc!

[mr. hankey]

Awesome pics Jorion. I've never skied that in powder. Looks awesome! Might be time for a road trip. Tahoe's been great... but hard to not get the itch after seen yours and docs pics
Watched the ESAC/Bardini vid last night. Really cool in how they did that, with all of the folks from that day in the forum. Props to Nate especially. Really shows that this can happen to the most experienced folks.

[frorider]

Turned around 450’ below the top after we felt a strange shift in the snowpack while booting and a foot deep slab pulled off readily in a quick pit.

jorion, sounds like you made the right call....

[~mikey b]

you didn’t make the wrong call

[wordbird]

How come there are 6 obs in Leavitt creek area by the pros even though the winter gate is very low down in the valley(6 miles west of 395). Is it a sled accessible area, or is there a higher gate that the closure moves up to in late winter/early spring?

[MTT]

This is one of my favorite threads.
I wanted to share this video and thought this might be a good spot.

[enlosandes]

Mount Wood is currently good to go from the road. June Pie Pizzeria is offering a 50% discount to anyone who summits and takes a photo to prove it. Just show your pic at the window. See you in The Loop!

[mr. hankey]

Nice enlosandes! That pizza looks good, I may have to take you up on that offer Saw tracks on Wood on my drive home Saturday. Did you ski that on Friday or Sat? Got pretty warm on Saturday - how was the snow?

Some pics showing the snow coverage in the High Sierra from our trip there Friday/Saturday. If you don’t live there like me, hope this helps. If anyone is looking for partners on the East side, Lassen, or Shasta, feel free to shoot me a DM 😎. My regular partner is out of action for a month, and others go less often. My wife is less keen on me going solo, even in corn cycles

Details if you care:
South of Mammoth/Convict – most of the roadside attractions have less than ideal coverage down low. Convict/Mammoth north still has skin/ski to the car coverage where we went(Lundy Canyon/Mammoth roadside). Northerly aspects we skied had supportable windboard or powder – lots of wind affect up high and coverage high up is less than mid mtn. But it got really hot Saturday, so lots will change w/o snow.

Virginia lakes – as of Thursday night, it looked like they still hadn’t started plowing the road. Fishmas is less than a month away, so I’m guessing partial access will start in a couple weeks(?). Mono county posted a parking etiquette map on their page (see link below).

Lundy – parking was 0.25 miles from the lake. Skin/Ski to car. Upper mountains were wind scraped and rocky.

Lee vining/June – Coverage looked fantastic on Vbowl, Wood, etc.

Convict – skin/skiable to the car. Some of the S side looked out of shape. Talked to folks that skied Pinner before the last dusting and they said coverage was "ok". Big Avy on Mendenahll !

Mcgee – Road side stuff looked pretty burned. Curious if anyone has driven up the road recently?

Big Pine – Trail hiking required to get back to the goods. Satellite showed the snow finger to the SE side of Slide mtn still goes, but didn’t look good after driving up there.

https://www.monocounty.ca.gov/.../pa...-road-closures
https://www.monocounty.ca.gov/.../va_lakes_parking...
https://esavalanche.org/
https://www.bridgeportavalanchecenter.org/observations
https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentin...howDates=false

Lundy


(Shirpa1)

Leevining/June



Convict:


Bloody: Finally got to ski it in powder , though probably not as nice as when Jorion went. Windboard for the first 200 ft, but below that it was pretty good down through the apron. We could ski/skin to the car(barely) + maybe 10-15 minutes of on/off walking where the road burned out. soon it will be mile+ of walking for sure. Got hot there Saturday.






Mcgee:


Bishop:


Big pine:

[mr. hankey]

Forgot to add - cool vid MTT. I love every turn of that road, especially when the mountains are covered in snow in the Spring. Each area, new mountains coming into view. The Mountains, the hot springs, the Momart/Walker burger shakes... The east side is heaven! I feel legit sorry for those who haven't been. Family's out of town so dropped off the dog at a friends before my trip. Conversation: "You're going skiing huh? squaw?" ... Me: "No, I'm going back country skiing... In the High Sierra, etc." ..."cool, is that near Squaw?" ... They'd never even driven down 395.

[WhetherMan]

Convict – skin/skiable to the car. Some of the S side looked out of shape. Talked to folks that skied Pinner before the last dusting and they said coverage was "ok". Big Avy on Mendenahll !

Mcgee – Road side stuff looked pretty burned. Curious if anyone has driven up the road recently?

Mcgee is good to go to the parking lot. Skin from the other side of the creek currently.

The guy skiing Mendenhall got real lucky. ESAC obs. Make good decisions out there.

Esha

[AKbruin]

Great stuff, mr. hankey! Nice score of powder on Bloody!

weatherman- Esha looks tasty.

endosandes—Good to know that June Pie Pizza is your joint. I’ve patronized it a couple times and look forward to more visits in the future. I would have taken advantage of your deal had I known of it on Saturday . . . .

Saturday: I finally skied Wood’s Hanging Garden or whatever the giant terrain-trap bowl is called on the north side.


I had to drop my kid off at ski team in Tahoe in the morning, which meant I didn’t start on Wood until about 10:30. The climb up the east face was hot and sweaty, but the snow was stable. The top 1,500’ of the most prominent east bowl felt a little funky. The booter was knee deep, but there was often a deep crust. Watching a few people descend, it seemed like the snow was a bit catchy.





Hanging Garden offered both smooth windboard and boot-deep powder and ended up being a fun ski, even in a sub-par snow year. Conditions were variable, but never really bad in the bowl.


The careful traverse out of the bowl had about 200’ of granular snow on scree and scrubs, which wasn’t fun but didn’t last long. The rest of the ski back to Grant Lake was tremendously fun warm pow and transitional corn.


A closer look at the close-out cliffs at the bottom:

[AKbruin]

Yesterday, I skied Bloody with whatsupdoc and a tele friend. We took advantage of what was left of mr. hankey’s bootpack. (Thanks!)


And then descended its south side.







And then climbed up its south-eastern side.




And then skied the Y, which is a neat line. As mr. hankey suggested, the road is melting out quick. We had about 10 minutes of collective dry hiking in the morning and maybe 20 minutes of dry hiking in the afternoon.

[jorion]

Sweeeeet! I love when this thread starts going off. Great stoke everybody.

Skied Kidney yesterday. Not the hero corn we found Saturday in Tahoe but still fun skiing. I bet it’ll be great in a couple days.

[Powcruzer]

Red Slate looking tall and proud back there. Great TR!

[mr. hankey]

Sweeeeet! I love when this thread starts going off. Great stoke everybody.

Couldn't agree more. This time of year when this thread springs back to life... It's like our "fishmas"
Great stuff AK/Doc as always. That N side on Wood - big exposure, especially skiing over shrubbery and such
Jorion, you're getting after it! - how was the lower traverse from kidney back to the car? was coverage good? any walking?
Thanks for the posts guys.

[jorion]

Mount Wood is currently good to go from the road. June Pie Pizzeria is offering a 50% discount to anyone who summits and takes a photo to prove it. Just show your pic at the window. See you in The Loop!

Mmmm, pizza. What’s the better approach at the moment, still from the south? Of course I wouldn’t be there before Friday night so I guess the coming week of warm daytime temps might change things.

[gimpy]

Awwwwwwww......fuk yeah team!!!
Always wanted to link red slate > bloody starting at convict.....cept your tour better suited for spring conditions. 2 more weeks till kids soccer season done n my range should widen......thanx for the inspiration everyone++++