Sierra Trip Reports

Locations & Dates:

Kirkwood – Thursday, December 31, 2009

Carson Pass Backcountry – Thursday, December 31, 2009 – Friday, January 1, 2010

Mt. Rose Backcountry – Friday, January 1, 2010

Alpine Meadows – Saturday, January 2, 2010

Skiers: Nick & Jonathan

Photographers: Nick (except as otherwise noted as Jonathan)

Synopsis:

With the holiday weekend approaching, our original intention was to go on a 2-day tour on Thursday and Friday with some resort skiing over the weekend. As Thursday approached, however, it became clear that a weather system would be moving in on Friday that may make backcountry conditions suspect.

Therefore, our *first* set of modified plans was to ski Kirkwood on Thursday, skin into Carson Pass on Thursday night and camp and then ski various shots off of Roundtop, Elephants Back and possibly Red Lake Peak around Carson Pass on Friday. As noted below, the weather did not cooperate and we modified our plans accordingly.

KIRKWOOD – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2009

Coverage and snow conditions at Kirkwood (the day before the fire) were OK. Some soft, chopped up powder, but nothing to write home about. Jonathan and I had not been to Kirkwood in quite some time, so we still had a good time mini-golfing certain aspects and attempting to hit some small hucks that went.

About 2-3 more feet of snow would seem that it would open up a world of options.

We spent the majority of the day way lookers right on the resort, hiking out to some untracked areas.

Jonathan dropping in:

Jonathan on some of the soft stuff. He was rocking is EHPs which were way too center mounted IMHO.

Jonathan with a nice huck:

Nick finding some of the soft stuff – I was on my Praxis Protests which just love the chopped-up mank. Photo: Jonathan.

Jonathan with one of the larger hucks of the day – probably 10 feet or so. Landings were spotty due to thin coverage.

Nick testing to make sure the torn meniscus is properly healed. Photo: Jonathan.

Another Jonathan huck – good form:

CARSON PASS BACKCOUNTRY – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2009 – FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2010

As previously mentioned, our plan after Kirkwood was to skin in to Carson Pass and set up camp, and get up early and start hitting some options (conditions dependent) near Round Top, Elephants Back and/or Red Lake Peak.

Jonathan and I (respectively) looking super pumped to skin in at night!

Actually the night (New Years Eve) was great – although we both pretty much forgot about it until we could hear the Kirkwood fireworks going off.

Jonathan skinning in at night:

Team photo cooking up some dinner in our cooking pit:

We camped at 8680 and the drinks were clearly tasty. Second Photo: Jonathan.

Earlier in the day, we had checked the avalanche report which was Moderate for the aspects we wanted to ski (with concerns for wind-loading). Our last look at the weather forecast for Friday indicated a system moving in late Friday.

Fortunately we were in the bomber single-wall tent because the winds started to pick up around 9 PM. When I woke up around 2 AM, the winds were easily moving at a steady pace of 40 mph with higher gusts and snow was blowing side-ways. By the morning, our cooking pit had been completely filled in by wind drifts.

We awoke to white-out skies, strong/continuous winds and snow banks. Given that we couldn’t call the Avy Forecast and all of the aspects we wanted to ski were leeward from the wind and pretty exposed, Jonathan and I decided to pull the plug and skin out. We would then go ski Mt. Rose Backcountry that has more aspects below tree line that we did not think would be as affected by the wind.

Note: Those from Tahoe realize this is a ridiculous drive from C.P. to Mt. Rose, but so be it. We thought it was the call at the time.

Nick breaking down camp. Photo: Jonathan.

It should be noted prior to leaving Carson Pass, we dug a pit in the trees to test and see if the basal facet layer was still present and propagating.

We dug a pit in at 8,650 feet on a North aspect, 30 degree slope. The weather was an overcast sky, wind out of the SW with light snow falling. Shin-high boot penetration. Snowpack was 120cm deep and we encountered rounding basal facets for about 10cm at the base of the snowpack.

We obtained one moderate surface snow failure w/out propagation. The basal facets appear to be gaining strength and rounding – there was no failure in that layer.

Video of the ECT NR, performed by Jonathan:

Picture of the test slope. Photo: Jonathan:

Mt. Rose Backcountry and Alpine Meadows on the next page.

MT. ROSE BACKCOUNTRY –FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2010

After the hour drive up to Mt. Rose, conditions still largely warranted hard-shell touring. Visibility was a little low and it was still lightly snowing.

Notably, on the drive up we checked the Avy Report which indicated Low with pockets of Moderate on N-NE-E aspects (with the primary concern wind loading). Notwithstanding the report, we were happy with our decision to bail on Carson Pass as we would have been hitting those aspects and our experience camping at a lower elevation in the trees still showed some serious wind-loading over-night.

Mt. Rose backcountry ended up skiing great. Mostly heavier unconsolidated snow due to the rising temperatures. I was on my Megawatt setup with Dynafit FT-12s. Those things just KILL IT in conditions like this.

Jonathan getting some nice turns at Mt. Rose:

Jonathan on the skin up. Note that the skies would eventually clear up somewhat:

Due to the Avy Report, we were playing it pretty safe with the aspects we were skiing. We went to the back areas of Mt. Rose and set a nice, new skin track up a low-angle southerly-aspect. We primarily skied SW-S facing aspects that held good, soft snow (although somewhat wet).

Jonathan after the skin up following the 2nd run:

Nick getting some nice snow. Photo: Jonathan.

Sequence of Jonathan on our 3rd run of the day:

Skin track stoke. Photo: Jonathan.

Nick on the skin up for the 3rd run. Photo: Jonathan.

A view down from the skin track to the lower portion of the aspect we were skiing. Photo: Jonathan.

Sequence of Nick on our 3rd run of the day:

ALPINE MEADOWS – SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 2010 – AKA “FAIL DAY”

We decided to hit Alpine on Saturday for some more inbounds skiing. The snow was marginal, with a breakable rain crust over mostly everything. Once again, the Praxis Protests absolutely kill it in this kind of snow – so no problem.

Jonathan dropping in to a nice chute on lookers left of South Beaver Bowl:

On the way out there was about a 8 foot wind lip that we decided to hit. After watching Jonathan almost pull a 360, I decided to give it a shot. Neither of us hit it nearly fast enough, and my “attempt” really resulted in a 270 to face plant/double eject.

Sequence of said FAIL (note the wind lip we were hitting is not really visible as it drops away). Photos: Jonathan.

Literally on the next trip up we decided to hit Idiot’s Delight, which holds some of the steeper skiing chutes at Alpine. Up top we scouted a line, which had some visible shark-rocks sticking on skiers left.

After noting to avoid them, Jonathan dropped in a skied a great line. However, I dropped in, took about 3 turns, hit said rocks, double ejected, and proceeded to tomahawk down the chute. The only non-fail was my successful ability mid-tomahawk to swim in the snow and avoid some boulders in the fall line.

Sequence of said FAIL (really wish we had video because these to not do this FAIL any justice):

Victory at FAIL!!!! Photo: Jonathan.

Followed by the FAILslide. Photo: Jonathan.

We did catch some nice snow at the end of the day back at Sherwood on the way to Grouse Rocks: