View Sier­ra Ski Trip — April 2013 in a larg­er map

I got back home last night after com­plet­ing the Sier­ra Ski Trip. All in all, despite the lack of snow this year, this was a great trip and real­ly good expe­ri­ence to get my gear and sys­tems dialed for this type of trav­el. In two weeks and over 250 miles, there was a mixed bag of con­di­tions and ter­rain to try every­thing out on. This ranged from walk­ing across dirt patch­es with our skis on, to hik­ing in our ski boots, scram­bling through house-sized talus with some class 4 and low class 5 moves in ski boots, to actu­al­ly ski­ing. Boot fit for all of these con­di­tions is the sin­gle most impor­tant les­son that I have learned, since I was­n’t expect­ing these con­di­tions and who knows what you will encounter.

Where’s the snow?

Dur­ing the past week, the con­di­tions improved great­ly since the major­i­ty of the time was spent over 8000 feet ele­va­tion. Up high in the lakes basins and head­ing up to the high pass­es the con­di­tions were opti­mal. The ski­ing was fan­tas­tic and the lakes were still frozen, which made for direct lines, good glide, and lit­tle side-hilling, not to men­tion fun, slight­ly out-of-con­trol down­hills. At times, espe­cial­ly in the after­noons, I would rel­ish in the fact that I had skis on. Know­ing that if I were hik­ing I’d be posthol­ing every step. In skis I was able to stand in places that I knew I would ordi­nar­i­ly post­hole, and not budge an inch. It was great! Oth­er times, espe­cial­ly in the morn­ings, I knew I could be mov­ing faster by walk­ing on the firm snow and straight up a steep uphill. Some­times I’d strap the skis on my back and boot­pack. Over­all when the snow­pack is cov­er­ing this much ter­rain, I’d have to say it is faster to ski. By the last week, my body was feel­ing good and used to the motions, so an aver­age of about 20 miles per day was not out of the ques­tion, includ­ing a few 30 mile days. At the begin­ning of the trip, we were hard pressed to get 15 miles in a day. In the last week, basi­cal­ly fol­low­ing the Pacif­ic Crest Trail/John Muir Trail cor­ri­dor through the High Sier­ras, I went over 8 high pass­es, cov­ered about 130 miles, and broke anoth­er cam­era. I am not sure how but right after the last town stop in Mam­moth the cam­era lens stopped work­ing. Bum­mer, but that is the life of a long dis­tance hik­er. This is prob­a­bly the fourth or fifth cam­era that I have had break in the back­coun­try. Oth­er than the cam­era break­ing, a few big blis­ters, and a cou­ple of painful bruis­es on my achilles from the ski boots (which were both­er­some enough to end up requir­ing Vit­a­min I treat­ment the last few days), the trip was fun and the scenery was amaz­ing. It was great to see the Sier­ra extra ear­ly in the sea­son with all of their Nevada.

Day 2 with the storm start­ing to break up.

A few days ago I saw bear tracks at 8500 feet ele­va­tion. The ter­rain was com­plete­ly snow cov­ered still, so I was very sur­prised to see this so ear­ly in the sea­son. I have been won­der­ing what the bear was doing up there since there obvi­ous­ly was­n’t much food yet. It is a light snow year but it seems very ear­ly in the sea­son for it to be head­ing to that elevation.

I think that’s all for now. Time to go get some Ben and Jerry’s.

Get­ting water.