Mt Lamarck and Mt Darwin Tour, April 17 - 19, 2009

I finally got down to the Sierra High Peaks for another ski tour, and it turned out we picked a great weekend. After a wonderful two days in Disneyland with the family, Dina dropped me off in Bishop where I meet Eric Martin. After eating dinner in the Chinese restaurant (there's only one), we drove out of town to camp at the "Pit" campground where we were invited to hang out at the campfire by some college climber babes. We enjoyed the evening's fireside chatting and "butt name spelling", but the big action was waiting for us the next day.

We fueled up with the Denney's Grand Slam and then drove up to North Lake. Unfortunately the road was closed at Alpendale, about 2 miles shy of North Lake. It was doubly frustrating because the road crew came by and opened the gate (a repeat of our Gilcrest luck!?) but wouldn't let us through. They were "working" on the road. Well, an hour later and a thousand feet higher we finally reached snow near North Lake and started skinning. We had some skin tracks to follow, but somehow got slightly off course and had to do a traverse that only cost us about 30 minutes. Eventually we got above tree-line and as we looked up there appeared to be someone on the ridge above us. Down came a snowboarder who just shouted hello at us as he went by and wished us well.

Finally, at 5pm, we reached the top of Lamarck Col at approximately 13,000. That made the day's elevation gain almost 5,000'! Needless to say, we were delighted to reach the high point of the day. From there we had to down climb through some rocks to get to consistent snow and then ski down to the Darwin Lakes where we saw evidence of the mystery split boarder's camp. After looking around a bit, we elected to camp along a moraine separating the first two lakes because Eric found a trickle of water we could use. He made a little dam and reservoir to collect water and then we used the hose from my Camelback to fill bottles. Later I found a more convenient spot in the ice that pooled nice fresh water. We were beat by the time we finished setting up camp and the Megamid, but enjoyed dinner time as the sun started to go down and enjoyed some Thai food and a sauvignon blanc.

Saturday we decided to give Mt Darwin a shot. We headed up to the snowboarder's old camp and then followed his tracks up the North Couloir of Darwin using our ski crampons until it got too steep and narrow and then we followed his boot track. Luckily it wasn't icy so even without boot crampons were were okay (I had a Whippet and Eric had an ice ax). It got really narrow and steep at the top, plus there were two sets of tracks and one of the sliders just side-slipped down, making it very unpleasant looking for the descent. Anyway, we got to the top (13,831'), which is a broad plateau with a gendarme sticking up and enjoyed the views, great weather (no wind) and lunch. We decided we were men enough to downclimb the upper section of the couloir, which was scary enough, and then skied the lower 2/3 and on to the apron. I was pooped when we got back to camp (my allergies were kicking in, surprisingly enough way up there!) but we went out for an afternoon "corn harvest" before dinner.

Sunday was our "easy day". We broke camp and shouldered the packs, now a bit ligther than on the in, and headed up for the summit of Mt. Lamarck (13,417'). It was a fairly easy skin up almost to the summit (especially compared to Mt. Darwin) and some great views. It was really nice to realize that we were basically done with climbing and could now enjoy the ski down to North Lake. The corn off the summit was spectatular and held up great until around 10,000', then it got mushy. Eric led us on an interesting line down the steep section above the lake and then we "enjoyed" the walk back on the road to the car.

The fun wasn't over yet; we stopped in Walker at Mountainview BBQ and had some incredible BBQ. It's my new favorite!

It was a great trip and with the heat wave we're now having, I think the timing was just about right.

Videos

Here's a slideshow:

Houghton Tour - 4-11-09

We got some good rain down in Reno, so Eric Martin and I decided to check out the north bowls off of Houghton. Since we only expected a few inches of new snow on a firm base, I decided to take Yuki. There was just some "dust on crust" at the trailhead, but once we got to Broken Glass, we were surprised to find five or more inches on a soft base.
Top of Galena Peak:

Rather than ski down Broken Glass as usual, we headed out to the end of the ridge allowing us to ski the steep north facing couloir. To my surprise, Eric had never skied it before! (I didn't think there was any line in the Rose BC that Eric hasn't skied.) While I climbed up to the top Eric cut in from the side so that he could take some pictures:

Standing up top:

Taking some turns:

Looking back at the Chute:


Then we climbed up to the top of Houghton and were again pleasantly surprised to find some sweet boot top powder. We did two runs down the north bowls/chutes before splitting up. Eric couldn't pull himself away and had to do another run, but Yuki (and I) were getting tired.

Eric making turns:
A set of tracks and the uptrack:


From the top of Houghton we skied a steep line between the rocks and had a little excitement. It was just steep enough and had gotten just enough sun that it started a slow slide which knocked me off my feet. I was slowly going down the chute and found it quite difficult to get back on my feet. Then I saw a little tree off to my left and I was able to angle over to it and use it to stop.

Looking back at the sluff:

Lesson learned, my next line was much more mellow. I came off Houghton down some nice soft snow and then had a 30 minute mellow ski (kick skins) to the ridge above the road and a few minute ski out. Yuki was really beat by the time we got to the Truck and I have to admit that I was pretty tired too.