My son Adam is graduating from high school, and for his senior project he spent a week at Mammoth, first practicing his telemark skiing, and then learning backcountry touring and snow safety with guide Doug Nidever http://www.themountainguide.com. Adam was with Doug at Tioga Pass on 5/23 and with another guide Lance Allred at the Virginia Lakes off Conway Summit 5/24.
I arrived at Mammoth Friday night and the plan was for both Adam and me to go with Doug 5/26. While skiing 5/25 Adam started to get tired (hard to tell from the pics in Hangman's) and thought he might be getting a cold. So just I went with Doug for my first alpine touring experience 5/26. I rented Scarpa Denali boots and Tua skis.
You may know that Memorial weekend is usually the earliest that the Tioga Pass road into Yosemite will open, and with this year's heavy spring snowfall it will not open until June 6. But the eastern side is usually plowed by Caltrans by the last weekend of April, opening of Sierra fishing season. This road access to 9,900 feet provides myriad backcountry skiing opportunities.
We drove in Doug's truck to the top of Tioga Pass and started skinning up at 7:40AM. Here's a view from the Tioga road of our first objective:
Ferdinand's Hat is the prominent rock at upper right, and we planned to first ski the broad snowfield to the left of it. Then we would climb out beyond the left of this picture and ski to Ellery Lake at 9,400 feet where I left my car.
After skinning to 10,700 feet, we had to attach the skis to our packs and hike up rocks and some steeper snow. Here's Doug after fixing my pack, overlooking Tioga Lake:
The snowfield in the far background, just right of Doug's head, is where he and Adam skied on Friday.
We reached the top of our snowfield at 11,300 feet about 10:15AM:
The peak is Mt. Dana at 13,000. If you follow the contour down the left of the peak, the notch is the entrance to the Solstice Couloir at 12,200. If I had been a faster climber or more altitude acclimated, we would have gone there for our first run.
But unlike the past 2 days at Mammoth, there had been an overnight freeze, and the snow on these northeast exposures now had a perfect corn consistency. Here's Doug skiing the snowfield:
A few weeks ago the valley at the bottom of this picture was continuously skiable from the bottom of the Dana or Solstice Couloirs (far out of picture to right) back to Tioga Pass (far out of picture to left).
We skied to the valley floor at 10,500 and skinned up the opposite side (with one short rocky stretch done on foot). Here's another view of Ferdinand's Hat and the run we just skied:
There's another backcountry skier almost dead center in this picture, but pretty hard to spot at this resolution.
To the left of where we skied the pitch becomes steeper and rockier with a few slide paths:
The smaller slide through the narrow notch at left occurred about 30 seconds before I took the picture.
Part way up we got a good view of the northeast face of Mt. Dana:
Dana Couloir is at the left shoulder of the peak and the Solstice Couloir is partway down the right side. There is also the 1,800 vertical Kidney Couloir on the backside. We met some of Doug's friends later who had just skied there.
I had a steady but slow with flatlander lungs climb to the top of Ellery Bowl at 11,400. Doug went ahead to scout skiable lines. He did not believe the bowl entrances were safe, especially as it was 1PM when I got up there. So we went for a different spot called Chute Out. Here's the view from the top of it, down to Ellery Lake 2,000 feet below:
Chute Out turned out to be a hair-raising adventure. It was narrower than expected, and we had to downclimb the upper part:
Doug brought my skis down, as I had my hands full just bringing my body down in these conditions. It was only about a 35 degree slope, but notice the irregular and junky snow surface.
For perspective, this is the view of Chute Out from Ellery Lake:
Snow had avalanched from the right into Chute Out, ruining the previously smooth surface.
I had turned over the camera to Doug, so he caught me in a couple of gorilla turns:
and
I was also sucking wind at that altitude and had to rest between these very strenuous turns most of the time.
We finally emerged from the bottom of Chute Out and crossed more avalanche debris into the bottom of Ellery Bowl:
The bottom of Ellery Bowl had very smooth snow, a bit sticky at 2PM, but likely perfect corn 2-3 hours earlier. You might wonder looking at this picture, as I did, what we were doing in Chute Out instead of Ellery Bowl. Notice that a large cornice overhangs the normally skiable part of the bowl. It had avalanche debris and rocks (not that clear at this resolution), so Ellery Bowl needed to be skied in a direct fall line from the entrance at left rather than traversing under the cornice. This line is much steeper and Doug judged it to be a no-fall zone with the rocks below.
This was my first experience with alpine touring and I must say I was impressed with the versatility. The boots were very comfortable climbing yet secure skiing, and skinning is a whole lot easier than doing it on foot with skis on your back. I was also not sore and exhausted the next day as I had been on my San Gorgonio hike-and-ski expeditions of 1980-83.
I arrived at Mammoth Friday night and the plan was for both Adam and me to go with Doug 5/26. While skiing 5/25 Adam started to get tired (hard to tell from the pics in Hangman's) and thought he might be getting a cold. So just I went with Doug for my first alpine touring experience 5/26. I rented Scarpa Denali boots and Tua skis.
You may know that Memorial weekend is usually the earliest that the Tioga Pass road into Yosemite will open, and with this year's heavy spring snowfall it will not open until June 6. But the eastern side is usually plowed by Caltrans by the last weekend of April, opening of Sierra fishing season. This road access to 9,900 feet provides myriad backcountry skiing opportunities.
We drove in Doug's truck to the top of Tioga Pass and started skinning up at 7:40AM. Here's a view from the Tioga road of our first objective:
Ferdinand's Hat is the prominent rock at upper right, and we planned to first ski the broad snowfield to the left of it. Then we would climb out beyond the left of this picture and ski to Ellery Lake at 9,400 feet where I left my car.
After skinning to 10,700 feet, we had to attach the skis to our packs and hike up rocks and some steeper snow. Here's Doug after fixing my pack, overlooking Tioga Lake:
The snowfield in the far background, just right of Doug's head, is where he and Adam skied on Friday.
We reached the top of our snowfield at 11,300 feet about 10:15AM:
The peak is Mt. Dana at 13,000. If you follow the contour down the left of the peak, the notch is the entrance to the Solstice Couloir at 12,200. If I had been a faster climber or more altitude acclimated, we would have gone there for our first run.
But unlike the past 2 days at Mammoth, there had been an overnight freeze, and the snow on these northeast exposures now had a perfect corn consistency. Here's Doug skiing the snowfield:
A few weeks ago the valley at the bottom of this picture was continuously skiable from the bottom of the Dana or Solstice Couloirs (far out of picture to right) back to Tioga Pass (far out of picture to left).
We skied to the valley floor at 10,500 and skinned up the opposite side (with one short rocky stretch done on foot). Here's another view of Ferdinand's Hat and the run we just skied:
There's another backcountry skier almost dead center in this picture, but pretty hard to spot at this resolution.
To the left of where we skied the pitch becomes steeper and rockier with a few slide paths:
The smaller slide through the narrow notch at left occurred about 30 seconds before I took the picture.
Part way up we got a good view of the northeast face of Mt. Dana:
Dana Couloir is at the left shoulder of the peak and the Solstice Couloir is partway down the right side. There is also the 1,800 vertical Kidney Couloir on the backside. We met some of Doug's friends later who had just skied there.
I had a steady but slow with flatlander lungs climb to the top of Ellery Bowl at 11,400. Doug went ahead to scout skiable lines. He did not believe the bowl entrances were safe, especially as it was 1PM when I got up there. So we went for a different spot called Chute Out. Here's the view from the top of it, down to Ellery Lake 2,000 feet below:
Chute Out turned out to be a hair-raising adventure. It was narrower than expected, and we had to downclimb the upper part:
Doug brought my skis down, as I had my hands full just bringing my body down in these conditions. It was only about a 35 degree slope, but notice the irregular and junky snow surface.
For perspective, this is the view of Chute Out from Ellery Lake:
Snow had avalanched from the right into Chute Out, ruining the previously smooth surface.
I had turned over the camera to Doug, so he caught me in a couple of gorilla turns:
and
I was also sucking wind at that altitude and had to rest between these very strenuous turns most of the time.
We finally emerged from the bottom of Chute Out and crossed more avalanche debris into the bottom of Ellery Bowl:
The bottom of Ellery Bowl had very smooth snow, a bit sticky at 2PM, but likely perfect corn 2-3 hours earlier. You might wonder looking at this picture, as I did, what we were doing in Chute Out instead of Ellery Bowl. Notice that a large cornice overhangs the normally skiable part of the bowl. It had avalanche debris and rocks (not that clear at this resolution), so Ellery Bowl needed to be skied in a direct fall line from the entrance at left rather than traversing under the cornice. This line is much steeper and Doug judged it to be a no-fall zone with the rocks below.
This was my first experience with alpine touring and I must say I was impressed with the versatility. The boots were very comfortable climbing yet secure skiing, and skinning is a whole lot easier than doing it on foot with skis on your back. I was also not sore and exhausted the next day as I had been on my San Gorgonio hike-and-ski expeditions of 1980-83.