If you’ve searched the web for information on a trail or peak, chances are you’ve come across a listing from Trails.com, a subscription-only website offering trail information and topo maps. For $49.00 per year, Trails.com claims to give you unlimited access to over 40,000 trail guides and topo maps for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Generally I prefer my websites free, so I always ignored Trails’ ubiquitous listings—though I often wondered what their content was like. Recently, Trails.com absorbed my favorite online map service, Topozone.com. That plus Trails’ 14 day free trial offer prompted me to take a look at their service. The verdict? Trails.com offers a depth and breadth of coverage that is considerably more than I was expecting. Is it worth $49 a year? Read on (more…)

If you’re free this Saturday, Mount Baldy’s San Antonio Ski Hut needs your help:

Dear Friend of the San Antonio Ski Hut:

In addition to the Fall Work Party scheduled the weekend of June
7th , we will have a one-day Work Party, Saturday May 30th.

We will meet 10:30 am at the San Antonio Falls Rd. gate, to help
carry supplies.

We will be carrying 2×4′s, 1×6′s, and possibly food/beverage and
other related items up to the Hut. Please come prepared with a large
backpack AND some rope/cord and/or tie downs, strapping, etc.

This will be a BYOB trip. No meals will be provided. Participants
will earn a full-weekends credit towards Host Qualifications.

ALL PARTICIPANTS MUST RSVP

Work party reservations normally fill to capacity within 48-72
hours, so do not delay your RSVP.

We are also still in need of additional participants for the June
7th weekend. Please email me if you would like to attend.

Please reply to this email to RSVP.

· Work Party participants will be required to sign a
release waiver

· Please bring a large backpack, so you may help ferry
supplies. Small backpacks will not cut it.

· No animals allowed at the Work Party. No children this
Work Party.

· Be prepared to carry heavy loads, work hard and eat good.

· We encourage new Hosts. Please bring someone
with you to the work party you think would make a good Host. We will
be qualifying new Hosts via Work Party’s.

· Please bookmark our website. The site
lists current “Host Schedule” contact info, and work party dates.

· Hosts are encouraged to contact Gil Estrada prior to
their scheduled Host weekend, to see if there are any supplies that
might need to be carried up.

· Please conserve firewood.

Reservations will be confirmed by email, with additional
instructions forwarded on an “as needed basis” as the date approaches.

Gil Estrada

Hut Chairman

2206 Silver Tree Rd.

Claremont, Ca. 91711

909-624-8224

offpiste1@aol.com

SMS Leader Alvin Walter sent me a few photos from his trip up the Sierra’s Rock Creek drainage over Memorial Weekend.

Alvin encountered ‘full winter conditions’ with up to a foot and a half of new powder.

Looking at all that gorgeous snow, all I can think is, where were you three months ago!

Sounds like those of you who braved the mixed forecast over the weekend got some excellent late-season skiing.

Farther south, people are reporting about a foot of new snow above 10,000′ in the Whitney Region.

With the switchbacks above Trail Camp completely covered, that’s going to be more than enough to abort summit bids for most parties. So, for the time being, expect challenging conditions if you have hiking or climbing plans in the Sierra.

As for skiing, it’s hard to say what you’ll find over the next few weeks. With such a wide variety of conditions across the range, from sun cups to ice to bare rock, that foot or so of new snow has a lot of work to do to make for sustainable skiing—especially when you factor in an unfiltered June sun. It may be that Memorial Day was the last big hurrah for Sierra Skiing. Or maybe there are a few fine stashes still waiting to be found.

I’ve updated some older content that had gone AWOL: a roundup review of several climbing helmet models I tried out over the past few seasons.

My pick of the bunch (at the time) was the Kong Scarab, for its ultralight 8.6 ounce weight and amazing comfort.

Basically, if I can think up an excuse to avoid wearing a helmet, I probably will. The Kong is light enough and comfortable enough to make it hard to find good reasons to leave it at home.

Another helmet that I like is Petzl’s Meteor III, which is quite possibly the lightest climbing helmet available.

Don’t forget about the old veterans: the Black Diamond Half Dome and the Petzl Elios. The Half Dome has been updated to give it more modern features, as well as make it lighter, but of the two I give the nod to the Elios, which makes it my pick for winter mountaineering and other contexts where durability is a factor.

For ski mountaineers, there is some concern that wide-open vent channels (ala the Kong or the Meteor) could catch a tree branch as you schuss by. I haven’t heard of a specific instance of that happening, but it’s nasty enough in the imagination to make it something to avoid. Generally speaking, the ultralight helmets have superior ventilation while the traditional helmets have a more closed design. Remember than open vents will also allow rain, snow, and dust to get in, so choose your helmet according to the conditions you’ll most likely face.

The Freakonomics Blog at NYT has an interesting write-up of what they call Beauty Premiums: the benefits enjoyed by being attractive. One of the most objective ways to measure beauty’s benefit is to simply look at wages, and this is what the Freakos do, in a series of provocative if not outright-disturbing studies.

Tall people turn out to be big beneficiaries, with the interesting stipulation that your height advantage has to begin in adolescence, because lifetime self esteem is heavily developed during this time. If you’re a tall kid, you get a self esteem boost, which translates directly into a wage boost (according to the study).

Another clever study looked at the impact of fluoridated water on future wages (if you’re not aware, fluoridation has a huge impact on teeth, especially for poor people who otherwise can’t afford good dental care). The results of areas which switched to fluoridated water? A wages boost in the next crop of kids.

So if you’re not beautiful, get your teeth fixed. At least you’ll make more money. Then, your self esteem will improve. Which is as good as being beautiful, and even if it’s not, you’ll have enough money to upgrade your appearance, so there you go.

All this talk of beauty and wages can be discouraging, but according to Freakonomics there is at least one bit of good news: people with unusual or ridiculous names do not suffer a wage penalty (so X-Man McGillicuty has nothing to worry about, apparently).

Here at SierraDescents, I’ve adopted a slightly different strategy: I prefer to simply assume I’m extremely attractive, rather than putting any work into actually being attractive (like wearing expensive clothes, getting cosmetic surgery, showering, combing my hair, etc). I’ve been quite happy with the results—though it is best not to examine yourself in the mirror too closely.

LATE SEASON STORMS aside, I’ve been looking forward to ditching the ski gear and switching to hiking and climbing.

After all, summer camping in the Sierra is easier in almost every respect than winter. There is one big difference, however: in summer, we share the mountains with bears.

I must say I ordinarily harbor no ill will toward bears, but as a hiker I find they present an added layer of complexity that I would be happy to do without.

Talk to your friendly forest ranger about bears, and you’ll come away all but convinced bears possess magical powers. That may be an exaggeration, but bears can present a significant threat to both you and your food. With a few simple strategies, however, you can greatly reduce the chances of an unwanted encounter (more…)

I was walking out my door today around 5 p.m. on the way to the grocery when the sudden rumble of thunder stopped me.

Hmm…I guess those black clouds on the horizon weren’t fog, after all. SoCal weather took a turn for the bizarre today, with the full gamut of weather phenomena.

Here at the SierraDescents command center, we got heavy rain and lightning.

For those unfamiliar with Southern California, rain this time of year is exceedingly rare, and thunder is rare year-round (more…)

Sheltered Location

Use a Lid

Filtering Debris

WITH OPPRESSIVE TEMPS currently baking Southern California, I thought I’d escape for a moment by listing a few tips on melting snow for water that I’ve learned these past few seasons snow camping.

What’s attractive about melting snow instead of carrying water is you can save a lot of weight.

One can of fuel (weighing about five or six ounces) can easily give you four liters of water or more, which would be prohibitively heavy to carry up the mountain—especially when you factor in the cruel load of winter camping gear and climbing hardware.

Regardless, carrying water becomes moot once the temperature drops past a certain magic number and your bag or bottle of water freezes into a solid brick.

So, if you’re going to camp in winter, you’re going to want to know how to melt snow to get water.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, I’ve found it’s a little tricker than you’d expect.

Melting snow takes a great deal of energy—ie, fuel. Efficiency is therefore going to be one of your primary goals. If your melting methods are poor, your water yield per can of fuel will plummet. Here are a few tips that should make a big difference: (more…)

Climbing Mount Williamson via Bairs Creek leaves you with a lot more than memories (and scratches): you also get gummed up with quite a bit of pine pitch.

It gets on your clothes, your hair, and your gear. So what do you do when you come home with everything covered in sap? Well, assuming you resist the temptation to just back your car up against a dumpster and get rid of everything, you’ll probably want to find some way to clean off the sap.

I know of two cleaners that work effectively against sap (more…)

THIS JUST IN: Climbing Mt. Williamson is still Hard.

Really Hard.

SierraDescents personally verified this yesterday, with an ascent and ski of the south-facing couloir between Mt. Williamson’s East and West Horns, accessed via the Bairs Creek Cirque. Ironically, I had no intention of trying this route this year, but a friend was interested in doing it. That got me thinking about trying to climb the horns, and ski the south-facing chute from the notch. Ended up doing it solo because of schedule snafus (more…)