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…)

Grab your car keys: Tioga Pass Road is open to Ellerly Lake and the Yosemite park entrance, coming from Highway 395.

Reports are that snow was very hard and frozen last weekend, with little softening, thanks to chilly temps (and even some rain). Mount Dana does not sound fun: rocky upper and too much bare ice on the couloirs below.

South Lake may have the best skiing until things soften up farther north. Sun cups are reportedly manageable in the area.

Horseshoe Meadows Road is now open to the meadows gate, with the campground roads still snowbound beyond. Haven’t heard anything about skiing here or the Langley region, except for this report of skiing Langley’s Northeast Couloir. Looks a little bare to me.

I’m debating the fairly crazy notion of a Bairs trip this weekend. Guess Birch Mountain didn’t beat me up enough—though it did take a full week to recover.

As for the local mountains, I haven’t heard anything. I do believe there’s still snow on north aspects, but no word as to whether or not it’s soft enough for good skiing.

Saturday I skied Birch Mountain with a group of skiers from the Angeles Sierra Club’s ski mountaineer’s section.

I don’t get the opportunity to ski in groups that often, thanks to my schedule and reclusive personality, but I do enjoy it, and it makes for fantastic photo ops.

The dynamic is also completely different when traveling with others as opposed to going solo.

I naturally try to go with the flow when I’m with others, which can lead to interesting dilemmas.

Birch Mountain is one of the Sierra’s true giants. It stands 13,665′ feet high, and the approach begins around 6300′, for a whopping 7300+ vertical feet of climbing.

Nonetheless, the approach is one of the easiest you’ll find from Big Pine south, with essentially no bushwhacking and no route finding necessary.

Our group planned a 6 a.m. meet time, which was obviously late to begin with for a day trip to the summit.

Some disagreement about which road to take tacked on an extra hour, so we didn’t get started until after 7 a.m.

This time of year, my primary concern (really, my only concern) is wet slides. Since we were ascending and skiing Birch’s southeast slopes on a warm, relatively windless day, I was worried that our late start would put us on the mountain when things got dangerously mushy.

As it turns out, that concern was unfounded (more…)

Today’s Notes from the Field come courtesy of my friend Bill, whose adventures on Mount Williamson served as an early inspiration to me on my own quest to ski California’s second-highest peak.

Bill has a thing for the George Creek approach, which appears here and there in the guidebooks, usually with a sly recommendation ala …for an extra-special adventure, don’t miss this unforgettable Sierra bushwacking classic… (more…)

Flagstaff had a great ski season this year, though, like California, the traditionally-big March ended up high and dry.

Still, there’s enough snow to ski on the mountain right now, so what better way to warm up the legs than put a 25 pound bundle of joy on your back, skin up the local ski run, and ski down?

In case you’re wondering, I’m using an Ergo carrier, which I really like above all the others I’ve tried (ie, Baby Bjorn, Baby Backpacks, etc).

Looking toward the weekend, Abineau Canyon still has plenty of snow on it. This descent goes right from the top of the San Francisco Peaks, elevation 12,600′, off three giant fingers of avalanche gullies. One of them went big in the El Nino winter of 2005, I believe, and I’ve got photos to prove that giant avalanches do indeed occur in Arizona.

Anyhow, there’s little to no such danger now, just lots of good Southwestern consolidated corn. I actually skied Abineau last year, if walking from patch to patch of snow can be called skiing. The San Francisco Peaks were hit hard by the drought last year, making for a pitiful ski year. No such trouble in ‘08, though. If I can get the logistics worked out, this would be a nice feature to write about–Arizona’s premiere backcountry skiing descent. We’ll see.

Sometimes as a writer you just don’t know how much information to give.

It would be easy to present this as a dashing adventure in which I fearlessly charged into the unknown and triumphed, except that’s not at all what it was like.

This was an intense struggle that really made me question myself and what I was trying to do.

I had noticed a tiny sliver of snow near Lone Pine Peak’s summit several years ago. It looked interesting. It also looked like it fed right into the middle of the peak’s massive northeast headwall, a 1000′ high cliff with no way out.

How I ever came to think it would be possible to ski this line, I can’t say. Occasionally, I guess my imagination runs amuk. I am glad to be able to return and tell the tale here. It was a powerful experience. For the record, I don’t know if this has ever been done before. It’s just such a big, elegant, aesthetic line it’s hard to believe it could have escaped so many good skiers’ attention for so long (though, as I note, it is indeed ‘hidden in plain view’). But I’ve never heard a word of it, so I just don’t know.

Lone Pine Peak: Summit to Desert

Allow me to say I’m just green with envy on this one—a group of skiers (or perhaps more accurately, madmen) hiked from Badwater Basin, Death Valley, elevation -282, to the summit of Telescope Peak, 11,049, some 20 miles of rough country away, skied the peak, and hiked back down. My favorite part of the Trip Report: when they’re 20 hours overdue, and they decline a ride from a concerned ranger back to their car, still some nine miles away!

Read all about the insanity at TGR:

Part One

Part Two

AFTER SCOUTING Mt. Baldy’s north face from Mount Waterman, I thought I’d hike up for a ski attempt this weekend.

There was no question there would be snow—lots of it.

But I was a little concerned about ice.

This has been a strange season for north aspects in the San Gabriels. Things have been persistently icy, even when temps get warm enough that you’d swear things should soften up.

To get a nice 2000′ vertical boost, I decided to access the mountain from Mt. Baldy Ski Area’s helpful chairlifts.

After all, whatever you ski on Mount San Antonio’s north face, you’ll soon be climbing. What goes down here must go back up—at least, unless you want a visit from S&R.

Via the mostly-dry backbone trail, I made great time to Baldy’s summit, arriving around 11 a.m. My plan was to ‘feel out’ the north face, hopefully finding good conditions, or else give the west face a look.

Well, despite quite warm temps, the north face looked pretty darn icy.

The snow was hard, smooth, and streaked with sheeny spots that clearly looked like trouble. I dropped a few vertical yards from the summit, and began traversing across the north face on a relatively lower angle pitch, bouncing on my edges, trying to see if the snow was soft enough for safe skiing (more…)

BUT IS THERE SNOW?

That’s certainly the question that was on my mind, so I packed up the skis and the boy and hit the road.

Figuring I’d try to find snow a little closer to home, I drove up Route 2 from La Canada.

I’ll tell you, things looked pretty bleak at first. When I passed the turnoff to Mt. Wilson, there wasn’t a speck of snow as far as I could see.

Thankfully, snow appeared a bit later, when I reached Mount Waterman (and the Mt. Waterman Ski Area - closed).

I parked the car around 6700′, put the boy in the Ergo, and did a very modest tour up to the ridge crest around 7300′ via some sort of decrepit rope tow path at the east end of Waterman.

Terrain for ski touring would be better straight up the peak from Route 2 a mile or so to the west, but I was looking for lower-angle fare today, seeing as I had a copilot.

At the crest, we played in the snow a bit, and I got to scout the surrounding area. Nearby Twin Peaks, which would be loosely accessible from the summit of Waterman, looked like it would make for a fine ski earlier in the season, when the south slopes of Waterman are covered. I’m always amazed by the steepness of the San Gabriel range, and its abundant (and technical) little summits. Put snow on these mountains, and there’s always a treat to be had.

Conditions at Mt. Waterman ski area looked totally doable. For such a small ski area, the terrain looked diverse and quite lively. I’ll have to give it a try sometime. Maybe the resort is still opening on weekends—I don’t know. Really, the only downside here (compared to the farther drive to Mt. Baldy Ski) is the slow, windy road, which pushes travel time up a bit.

I also got a chance to scout Mount Baldy’s north and west faces, which are easily snow-covered enough for skiing. Just be aware that either option requires you to summit first, then ski into no-man’s-land, then hike back to the summit to get home. Lots of work. Still, that’s probably where I’ll be this Saturday.

Bottom line: north-facing aspects in the eastern San Gabriels are still in good shape above 7000′, with a dense, 2-4′ snowpack that shows no sign of going anywhere in the near future.

I HAVE BEEN WANTING to write up a feature on Telluride for a long time now, and this year the timing seemed perfect, thanks to the opening of Palmyra Peak.

What I didn’t really expect was how much I had to say on the subject. My apologies for what blossomed into a rather long article.

Originally, I was just going to focus on Palmyra (which is stunning!), but then I started drifting into the whole history and magic of the place, and it was a lost cause at that point. For all my babbling, I do think that Telluride’s Palmyra Peak, which is now open as part of the resort’s controlled terrain, offers an experience unlike anything else any North American resorts have to offer.

High praise, I know. Time will tell as to how Telluride and Palmyra come to be viewed by the ski industry—and whether or not Telluride is even successful at keeping this radical terrain open. For now, if you can’t get there in person, you’ll just have to read about it.