Great Way to Celebrate Dina's Birthday!

Dina's Birthday was yesterday (5/22) and I had the day off. She was kind enough to let me "go play" for the day. And play I did!

I started out the day by meeting Steve up at Alpine Meadows at 7:30, which closed weeks ago, and we skinned up to the top of Ward Peak and then dropped over the back side towards the the Sherwood Bowl chair for two nice, steep corn runs. Then we climbed back up to the top of the peak and skied down to the cars.

Here's Steve heading up:


Here I am up on top of the ridge:


Here's a short run:


After skiing, I drove up over Donner Summit and met Chad, his friend Mike and another kayaker they bumped in to, Buddy, for kayaking the "Summit Run" of the upper South Yuba River (aka Rainbow Lodge run). It's one of my favorite runs, but since I haven't been kayaking much in years, I was a bit nervous. I remember the run pretty well and Buddy knew it cold. It was at a perfect level (bout 650cfs) and dropping in that first rapid from "Hansel and Gretel" bridge was a blast!
Here's a picture of the first rapid from above:



I was concerned about the second big rapid b/c I've seen people get worked in the hole at the bottom, but it went fine. We enjoyed working our way down thsi wonderful "pool and drop" river and I really enjoyed the new line on the big ledge drop that Buddy showed me. Here's the approach and drop:

Chad and I hiked the cascaded above Rainbow Lodge, but Buddy and Mike ran part of it. Impressive! Below Rainbow Lodge, "Double Drop" or "Z Drop" was next. Chad and I had really clean lines on it, and everyone did fine. The whole time I've got the final big drop, "Tombstone", in my mind. Will I run it or not? I've run it every other time I did the river, but... Well, we got down there, I looked at it and I knew my line. What a rush and what a fun rapid!

Here's the drop from below after I ran it:


Here's my run. Unfortunately a big drop of water got on the lens after the first drop.


Now we just had a few little rapids to bop down to the take-out. But lo and behold, Chad and I decide to run a narrow entrance together and we knock each other over. After getting banged up a bit and missing a role I pull the sprayskirt and bail! Oh, the shame of it all. Oh well. Maybe it's just rationalization, but it felt good to "swim" and realize that it's not so bad.

We were famished by the end of the run and enjoyed a beer and sandwhiches. I got home with just enough time to shower, change and go out to a lovely dinner at Lexie's overlooking the Truckee River in downtown Reno with my lovely Birthday Girl.

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.

March Enters with a DUMP! 3-5- 09

Thursday March 5th - Bridger turns 5 - I've got the day off and we've had TONS of snow recently. I've been battling the crud that's going around, so I decided to take it easy and head to Mt Rose. Actually, I didn't think I'd get to ski at all because Dina was so sick last night I considered taking her to the ER. But a little Phenergan and Vicodin and she slept like a babe and felt much better this morning and gave me the green light. I made the boys' lunches and got them off to school before heading up. After just 2 runs in the Chutes I realized that I was going to get bored at the resort, so I took on last run down Ramsey's (to get to the car easier) and heaed up to Big Springs and skinned up to Hourglass. I hooked up with another solo skier I meet at the summit (Julius) and we skied two fun runs together before I realized I was feeling fatigued and headed over to proletariat for a run out to the car. Even though I tired quickly, it was great to be out in the BC again.

Here's my second run down "El Cap"



Skiing next to Hourglass

Sunshine Ridge 2-24-09

I took the day off today and thought I had picked a great ski day since it rained like crazy down here last night. I was hoping to go to Sugar Bowl or Squaw, but unfortunately the storm was very warm and windy so by the time I left the house, my expectations were low. I planned to go to Mt Rose Ski Resort, but when I got there (~9:00) the Quad lifts and Chuter were still not running due to wind. So I headed up to the Big Springs parking area since I knew Ed was heading out to Sunshine Ridge at 9:00. I met two split-boarders in the lot and we headed up to the ridge and took our first run together. While they set up their boards I went down a little bit and dug a pit. The snow was pretty uniform and I didn't find a layer in the pit wall, but when I did the shovel compression test it failed at 28 on two tests with a pretty clean shear (but didn't pop). We stuck to mellow, treed lines, but the snow was pretty worked by the wind everywhere we went. I caught Ed and two friends, Chris and Ranbir, and skied the next run with them. We looked at skiing Benoit's Chute, but decided to stay safe and stick with the mellower terrain. Although the snow wasn't great (interesting is what Treyson, my 8yo, calls it now) it was a fun morning. We had beautiful blue skies and it was a very social ski; quite different from my last time in the same area where I didn't see a single other person.

Another Early Morning, 2-21-09

It looks like a storm in coming in tonight so I wanted to get some BC skiing in today (Saturday). I had a problem though, Dina had plans with "the girls" starting at 11:00. Not really a problem; I just got up at 5:30 and loaded my gear and my partner (Yuki) in the truck for an early morning ski. After grabbing my usual bagel on the way we were skinning around 7:00. I initially parked at the maintenance station across the road and just below Sky Tavern, but got "shoo'ed" away by a guy in a big snowplow (I don't argue with snowplows) so we went up to the parking lot just past Mt Rose Ski area on the right (before Sunshine Knob). From there we skinned up Sunshine and skied three great powder(ish) runs on the north side. It's funny how one day you can feel like a stud and the next time out like a wimp. I was definitely the wimp today. I'm recovering from a GI bug ( I left a "deposit" to prove it) and it's amazing how much that can sap you. My legs just didn't have it on the climb. But it was really beautiful and I'm glad we got out there.

After getting home and eating lunch I had a little time to relax before heading back up to Mt Rose with all three boys where we skied with the Livingston boys while the moms were enjoying the warm afternoon downtown (biked there) on the "wine walk".

The only picture I took was of the mountain on the way up (batteries died):

Waterhouse Peak 1-28-09

The sky cleared up yesterday and we're back to our lovely blue sky California (and Nevada) weather. It sure is beautiful, but we really need MORE STORMS!

Tuesday Justin Winter and I led a mid-day workshop on Wilderness Medicine and had a lot of fun building sleds and splints with about 25 participants. After demonstrating in the classroom we went outside and the participants built three sleds and "raced" each other. It was great fun!
Starting off inside:

Then building sleds outside and testing them:
We finished up around 2:00, not enough time to ski Heavenly (and use a lift ticket), so I went out to a the High Meadows Trailhead for a tour on my fishscale pattern skis. After touring out the snow covered fire road a ways I couldn't resist climbing up Trimmer Peak at least part way. The views were great, but since I started at 6500 feet, the snow was a few inches of "dust on crust". So I carefully skied back to the trail and then back to the truck.


Wednesday was another blue sky day and my workshop (critically reading the medical literature) didn't start until 2:15, so I left Harrah's around 7:00 and headed out to a "local's favorite" Waterhouse Peak. I've heard it holds great powder, but have never skied it before.

Looking across "Grass Lake" as I started out:

There was an obvious and well used skin track heading out from the parking area, but as I climbed I was getting concerned about how cut up and heavily skied the slope was. Up top I had great views all around: north to Lake Tahoe, west and south to Red Lake Peak, northeast to the Desolation Wilderness.

I decided to follow some tracks south, to the skier's right. They led to a less heavily skied area and I was able to then cut under a rock band (didn't want to ski above it!) to an incredible untracked paradise. The rock pillows were so numerous and inviting that I even jumped a few of them.

Looking back at the bowl:


I headed back up and after chatting with a couple, Jay and Christine, I skied through the glades to the left (west) of the heavily tracked out area. I didn't have to go far to get some untracked snow.
Here's a dead tree I thought looked interesting:
It was so good that I went back up for a final lap. I was warned that staying left would lead me away from the truck and make for a slog back. So about 400 vertical feet above the truck I contoured over and was able to easily ski right to the parking area.

I'd say it was one of the best days I've had out there!

These two short videos really don't do justice to the quality of the snow.

Not a bad start to the 2008 - 2009 ski season

November 3rd, 2008

We got a one-two storm punch with over a foot up in the mtns so I arranged to start my work day (Hospital Attending) at 10 so that I could ski. I met Dick, Eric and Scott Tyler at the Galena Starbucks at 5:30 and we were skiing up the East Bowl by 6:00.

The snow was surprisingly light and deep enough that we avoided most of the rocks. We took 1 run on Bonanza and then 2 on Silver Dollar.














David's Turns


Scott's Turn(s)


Up top it looked like winter!














After a morning like this, it wasn't so bad going to work! :-)