Eastern Sierra BC 2022-23

[abcdethan]

Classic Mt. Tom photo from yesterday.


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[goldenboy]

GoldenBoy - Mini Morrison out of Convict is a quick and dang fun shorter day
]

Ha, nice- I guess we are on top of it, because that's exactly what we did today! Great corn around 1pm.

Bunch of folks at the trailhead said pinner was still skiing well.

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[406]

Nice work string together several big days abcdethan.

[rod9301]

Skied a South facing couloir on Victoria peak on Sunday. Left at 5 something am and returned at 2. Lots of postholing slowed things down, but also the couloir was 3,000 vertical feet. Decent snow, would have been better with a few more freeze thaw cycles on the apron.
Not really steep enough to merit a 3 hour drive from Tahoe.

There were rocks showing in the crux, which will get much bigger soon, but there were a ton of couloirs there, most around 3000 feet.

And, everyone coming back around the same time were a lot more energetic then i was.

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[chill winston]

looking for ideas for next weekend/week. what's good right now in terms of access from Bishop south? Anyone been up Big Pine and what's the road status towards Glacier Lodge? With fishmas upon us and the road only open to Aspendell, what's the overnight parking situation there to walk up towards Sabrina? Onion Valley looks gnarly right now but maybe just a longer walk? ideas welcome...

[mr. hankey]

looking for ideas for next weekend/week. what's good right now in terms of access from Bishop south? Anyone been up Big Pine and what's the road status towards Glacier Lodge? With fishmas upon us and the road only open to Aspendell, what's the overnight parking situation there to walk up towards Sabrina? Onion Valley looks gnarly right now but maybe just a longer walk? ideas welcome...

Hi Chill, We skied out of big pine on 4/20. We skinned from the winter closure ~2 miles out, but on the way back, they had already cleared 0.25-0.5 miles of the road. I'd assume the road is snow free to the end now, but who knows if they've cleared parking for the overnight lot yet, etc.

Lundy just opened to the Dam. Virginia hadn't even started getting plowed when i left 5 days ago, so i'm doubting that opened for fishmas.

Both McMurray meadows and Buttermilk roads were blocked 1.5-2miles due to mud bogs (and people got stuck trying to cross on both of them). Access for Tinnemaha, Birch, S side of Tom, etc. are moving up quickly. We skinned/skied to about ~7k on both last weekend, but i'd guess by now you'll be hiking to ~7.5-->8k. Snowline to Basin, etc. looked to last a bit longer.

Rod, you're a couloir machine. Way to go!

ABCDEthan, i'll post some pics from our trip later.

Sherpa1 and I were looking to head down there again starting Monday, but watching the weather so we might delay.

[rod9301]

Abe, do you anything about the conditions on Dana plateau,?

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[goldenboy]

looking for ideas for next weekend/week. what's good right now in terms of access from Bishop south? Anyone been up Big Pine and what's the road status towards Glacier Lodge? With fishmas upon us and the road only open to Aspendell, what's the overnight parking situation there to walk up towards Sabrina? Onion Valley looks gnarly right now but maybe just a longer walk? ideas welcome...

Bunch of people sleeping in their vans at aspendell when we went from there up towards Emerson a couple days ago.

Pinner was super fun fwiw.

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[whatsupdoc]

any recent beta regarding how far you can drive up the onion valley road?

Edit: And rock creek road?

Thanks.

[406]

Inyo NF had a facebook post from a few days ago:
https://www.facebook.com/inyonf

[whatsupdoc]

Thanks 406.

Glad to see all of the east side stoke, thanks everyone.

I've been able to ski a number of days down on the east side this past month. Nothing too big, but all fun days.

Here's some brief TRs.

I had a tele-skiing buddy in town for about 1.5 weeks in early April. Following four days of pow skiing in Tahoe, we ventured south for some bigger terrain. Day 1 was April 6, three of us skied the E couloir of Mattterhorn. We had great conditions. Chalk in the couloir and nice shallow pow all the way to the bottom of the exit couloir. We were stoked.

[whatsupdoc]

More from Matterhorn:



The following day we were joined by claymond and his partner, both on splitboards. We skied out of Big Pine. We initially had aspirations to go deeper, but we called an audible to the main N gully on Kid Mountain on the way out. It turned out to be a good call as weather rolled in during our ascent. By the time we topped out it was pretty socked in, windy, and snowing lightly. The skiing was variable. It was less catchy than I thought it would be on the way up. It skied decently, but the flat light made things challenging. In retrospect it would've been a good day to rest. Oh well.

[whatsupdoc]

2 more from Kid Mountain:



The following day the 5 of us decided on something a little longer and went after the N face of Kearsarge Peak above Sardine Canyon. It was a new peak to all of us. The skiing wasn't epic, but it was still a rad day with an awesome summit. It was longer and more difficult than we all anticipated, Kearsarge is a bit of an east side giant. We drove to about 7K on Onion Valley Road. A short walk up the road had us beginning the long traverse into Sardine Canyon. The split boarders weren't stoked on all of the sidehilling. We crossed at least 3 old slide paths, all of which were sizable. We slogged up Sardine Canyon until about 11K. From there we booted the lookers right gully. We had to cross some rocks on the way up. We tagged the summit and then traversed the ridge over to the next gully to the east, which had continuous skiing from the ridge. The gully skied well, chalk to some wind-deposited soft snow. Sardine Canyon was a bit of good corn plus plenty of sastrugi and over-baked corn. We traversed back to the road without too much difficulty, ending a memorable day.

[whatsupdoc]

More from Kearsarge:

[whatsupdoc]

The next day we were joined by the esteemed AKbruin for a day on Carson Peak. We had a large group, 6 people, which is more than I typically ski with. We had Pete's Dream in mind. AKbruin and I had skied it in 2019, but it was a new line to everyone else. It warmed up quickly on the ascent. We made quick work of Carson bowl, with claymond putting in the booter at the top. We traversed over to Pete's Dream. We were uncertain about the snow and it was warming up fast. We deliberated for a bit. AKbruin, claymond, and claymond's partner chose to ski it while the rest of us skied Carson Bowl to Devil's Slide. It was probably a good call to not have 6 people in such complex terrain while it was warming. We all ended up having good conditions and met up at the bottom. The others said Pete's Dream skied like a dream. Carson bowl was chalk to some nice wind blown soft snow. Devil's Slide was still a bit transitional but skied well.

[whatsupdoc]

My final day of skiing during this stretch was April 10. I was joined only by my tele-skiing buddy, as everyone else either went back home or skied something else. It was forecasted to be warm but we still wanted to ski corn. And we were both pretty beat, so we wanted something kinda easy. We decided on the S gully of McGee Mountain. We started quite early, about 4:45 AM, since it was a poor refreeze the night before. The climb was uneventful. We skied at around 9 AM, and we wouldn't have wanted to be much later. The top was nice corn. The lower half was already getting punchy on the E facing stuff, but the more SE skier's left terrain was great corn all the way to the bottom. We made it back to the car quickly, stoked to end the trip with some nice corn skiing.

[whatsupdoc]

The following weekend Franz Klammer came to the east side to ski a few days with AKbruin. I joined them for the weekend.

Saturday we skied out of Convict, looking for corn and something different. We were joined by somethingclever. We decided on the SE bowl of Morrison South. It turned out to be great corn skiing. We went back out over Morrison Col for some more good skiing down to Convict Lake. Fun day for sure.

somethingclever, AKbruin, and Franz Klammer:



AKbruin:



somethingclever:



Franz Klammer:



Franz Klammer and AKbruin:



somethingclever:



AKbruin:



Franz Klammer:



somethingclever:



AKbruin:

[whatsupdoc]

More from the Morrison South/Morrison Col tour:



Franz Klammer, AKbruin, and somethingclever:



Sunday we lost somethingclever but gained skiwald and 1 other from Tahoe. After much deliberation the evening before we chose the Mini Pinner. claymond and his partner were in town as well and went for the Pinner proper. It was a busy day on the Pinner with about 10-12 skiers that we counted, but the Mini Pinner was all ours. It is a really cool line, walled in the whole way. We had awesome corn, making for an excellent day. We met up with claymond and his partner after they skied Pinner. We all shared a beer in the parking lot afterwards before going our separate ways.





Franz Klammer:

[whatsupdoc]

More from the Mini Pinner:

AKbruin:





Franz Klammer:



skiwald:





skiwald:



AKbruin:





Meeting back up below the Pinner:

[MagnificentUnicorn]

My final day of skiing during this stretch was April 10. I was joined only by my tele-skiing buddy, as everyone else either went back home or skied something else. It was forecasted to be warm but we still wanted to ski corn. And we were both pretty beat, so we wanted something kinda easy. We decided on the S gully of McGee Mountain. We started quite early, about 4:45 AM, since it was a poor refreeze the night before. The climb was uneventful. We skied at around 9 AM, and we wouldn't have wanted to be much later. The top was nice corn. The lower half was already getting punchy on the E facing stuff, but the more SE skier's left terrain was great corn all the way to the bottom. We made it back to the car quickly, stoked to end the trip with some nice corn skiing.

Great trip! What’s the tele binding that your friend is using?


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[whatsupdoc]

^ Thanks. He's using the Kreuspitze (sp?) tele tech system with Voile cables. He likes it. Dude is tele for life.

After working every day for the next week+, I managed to sneak away for 3 final days of corn skiing from Monday 4/24-Wednesday 4/26. I was joined by a buddy from Truckee who was fairly new to east side skiing. I worked late the night before so we chose something that would allow for a later start on day 1, the Wineglass out of McGee. I had never skied it, and I figured the NW aspect would allow for a more leisurely start (8:45 AM). It was a long approach since we had to skin the entirety of McGee Rd, but it was simple. Finding a place to cross the creek was easy, there were plenty of options. The climb was straightforward. It was breezy most of the way up. The top couple hundred feet was still firm when we descended at about 2 pm, but the majority of the line was nice corn. We made it back to the car without having to put skins back on, which was a bonus.

[whatsupdoc]

Day 2 we decided on the east face of Mount Lewis. I had skied it once before in 2017. We figured it would provide good corn and a nice summit. We started at the junction of the June Lake loop and Parker Lakes Rd. We started early (4 AM) which was the right decision. We navigated towards the start of the Parker Lake TH in the dark, mostly staying near the road. After 1 snafu where we dropped down into the creek drainage too early, we made it to Parker Lake in about 2:15. I was able to skin up the steeper part of the main gully using ski crampons, but my buddy went to boots. After that we skinned our way to the headwall. An easy booter had us to the summit. We skied at 10 AM which turned out to be money corn pretty much the whole way back to the lake. We slogged out to the TH with skins on, but we were able to ski down to the car from the location of the summer TH. Another great east side day capped off by beers at the deserted June Lake Brewery.

[whatsupdoc]

Our final day was this past Wednesday. We chose to ski one of the east gullies of East Peak above Lee Vining. It was getting warmer throughout our trip, so we once again started early (about 5 AM), which worked out well. We climb at a rather leisurely pace, and the the ascent was uneventful. We crossed some impressive avy debris below the Fruit Chutes that ran quite a long ways. We climbed and skied the gully that is just to the north of The End. We descended at about 9:45 AM, once again enjoying really nice corn skiing most of way back to the car. It was nice to finish early and get back to Tahoe by mid-afternoon.







I was hoping to get some more skiing in down there this week, but weather doesn't look great for skiing bigger east side lines. I'm actually going to take advantage of the colder than usual temps and climb some sandstone in Vegas. I would however like to get some skiing in on my way home. We'll see...

[rod9301]

You're killing it, great TRs

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[jorion]

Awesome trip reports, I had started to think this thread had been abandoned.

Life hasn’t allowed much skiing for me (newish parent, too much work, living too far away, blah blah blah) but I did make it out this weekend for days two and three of the ski season. Saturday we happened to also ski the SE bowl of Morrison south but had to turn around at 10AM a few hundred feet short of the top when the snow above the convexity was isothermal. A prudent and timely decision since apparently right after we skied past mono Jim on the way out it slid pretty big (multiples obs over on ESAC). It was a bit of a shock to look back up the hill from the car and see a big patch of brown after having just skied under there 20 or 30 minutes before.

A more pleasant surprise was running into Chris benchetler and Michelle Parker (and also apparently Sean Pettit and Nate Greenberg, but we didn’t recognize them) at the start and end of the day. Chatted them up a bit when they got back about what they had skied and they seemed like friendly folks full of good vibes.

Sunday we had a notion to ski one of the Fruit Chutes or the east couloir doc skied but between the lower elevations not having frozen much overnight and the sun possibly not coming out and softening the high elevation stuff we were content to just have a mellow day skiing V Bowl while it was relatively fun and not insisting on climbing high just to wait around a couple hours and/or ski loud and bumpy snow.

Bailed a day early with the poor forecast for today and headed home early. Not exactly the East Side trip I’d been dreaming of, but nice to walk through the mountains.

Oh, and the amount of snow up there is insane. I mean, I knew that, but I still wasn’t prepared for the sheer quantity still there everywhere. Good god.