Here’s a slide show of my trip up San Jacinto Peak on Thursday. Speedster Brent and I went up the tram and then up the east face. Snowfall totals and icing were eye-popping higher up the mountain. Around Mountain Station and the ranger house, there was still probably a solid 2-3 feet of snow. The (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 6 Comments
Skiing
Sometime during the ’09-10 winter, a large avalanche took place along the NE side of Alto-Diablo Peak, wiping out a portion of the South Fork Trail somewhere slightly southeast of Poopout Hill. When my partner and I saw the remains of the slide that April, toward the end of the season, it was obvious it (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 3 CommentsMy friend Dan is going skiing on Monday…for a year. After a brief tour of several U.S. ranges, he and his wife will leave for the Himalaya, with plans to summer in the Andes after that. Aside from the overwhelming jealousy I feel watching them go, I’m also so stoked that they’ve managed to turn (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 0 CommentsIn the unlikely event that Mt Baldy Ski Area hasn’t already flooded your inbox with announcements, I feel obligated to post notice that the Chamber of Commerce Virtual Passes are on sale again for the upcoming 2010-2011 ski season, now priced at $99. These work just like a regular season pass, except they’re subject to (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 1 CommentHooray—sort of. It’s probably not news to you by now, but Tioga Pass Road has opened for the 2010 season as of 8 a.m. Saturday. Bummer of course is that this year’s opening coincides with psycho high temperatures in the mountains. The forecast I watch was calling for a high of 61 today at the (more...)...
Posted in Current Conditions, Skiing | 7 Comments
Skiing
Looks like this weekend is it for skiing at Mt. Baldy resort. I was there yesterday to enjoy one last day on my pass, closing out what has been a surprisingly strong year at the always-quirky Mt. Baldy ski area. Rumor is Mt. Baldy got a double cash infusion this past season, first from a (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 6 Comments
Skiing
If there is one singularly conspicuous omission in the SierraDescents repertoire, it is unquestionably a ski descent of San Jacinto Peak via Snow Creek. There are many fine peaks and routes to covet in California, but among ski mountaineers in the know, Snow Creek stands alone. To those unfamiliar with the San Jacinto Mountains, their (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 6 Comments
Skiing
This past weekend some friends and I took a professional videographer up West Baldy to try to nab some footage of Southern California backcountry skiing for a Ski Channel project. After staring at West Baldy’s impressive west face from Iron Mountain two weeks ago, we really had no choice but to ski it. The skiing (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 5 Comments
Skiing
I first saw it in January 2008. My friend Bill Henry and I were climbing Mount Baden-Powell for a modest day tour in Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains. As we stood atop Baden-Powell and looked across the deep chasm to our south, we noticed a pencil-thin couloir shooting down an unknown peak several miles away. (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 19 Comments
Skiing
Maybe one of the things to remember about an El Nino year is that the storms love to ambush the Southland. I don’t think anyone was expecting the rain intensity we saw Friday through Saturday morning. I certainly wasn’t. Saturday I drove to Palm Springs, figuring the tram would get me to snow with the (more...)...
Posted in Skiing | 12 CommentsWhen 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.
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