SierraDescents.com

SierraDescents | 2011

Split Mountain

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Huge, huge day on Split yesterday—we skied the north face right off the top of the north summit, then down into the Red Lake basin right beneath the east face and the (more)

Skiing Whitney’s North Face

Skiing Whitney's North Face

Whitney has eluded me. When I first tried to ski this mountain the defeat was so humbling and so absolute it was years before I dared return to the Sierra backcountry. But, every (more)

Eureka Casper

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Think of Eureka's Casper as an economy-class sleeping bag with higher aspirations. At roughly 1/4 the price of a high-end down bag, the Rteq™ synthetic 15°-rated Casper is (more)

Skiing Whitney!

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I'm so excited—Whitney has eluded me since 2006, when I passed on skiing the Mountaineer's Route, figuring I'd get to it next season. Every year since then, I've waited for (more)

Panasonic TM700

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Panasonic's TM700 hi-def camcorder offers us the technology equivalent of a Faustian bargain: you get something extraordinary, but it comes with an unexpected cost. The good can (more)

Steep Turns & ‘Edge of Never’

Steep Turns & 'Edge of Never'

One of the things I love about ski mountaineering is that there's always something new to learn. Over the course of this season I've been trying to improve my steep skiing (more)

Muir’s East Buttress

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In a way, I wished I'd never seen it. I was having a nice, easy backcountry skiing season, perfectly fine, and I didn't need any trouble. I didn't need to do anything special. I (more)

Portal Road, Snow, Permits

Portal Road, Snow, Permits

Despite the ease of access, the Whitney Portal region has a less than glowing reputation when it comes to backcountry skiing. Perhaps it's not so much that there's something (more)

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About SierraDescents

When there is snow, SierraDescents is Andy Lewicky's California backcountry skiing and mountaineering website. Without snow, sierradescents becomes an ill-tempered hiking and climbing blog.

Pray for snow.