Pep­per and I start­ed ski­ing from High­way 108 near Sono­ra Pass, CA on April 15. The high­way was still closed for the sea­son so the trip began with a road­walk up to snow­line. It was an inter­est­ing trip, as you can see from the trip updates past­ed below, due to the low snow year. How­ev­er, it was still a great trip and a good learn­ing expe­ri­ence incor­po­rat­ing a lot of new skills and equip­ment. The JMT/PCT cor­ri­dor, which I fol­lowed for the sec­ond half of the trip was fan­tas­tic for a long dis­tance ski trip. I fin­ished the trip head­ing out Kearsarge Pass on April 29, ski­ing prob­a­bly about three quar­ters of the rough­ly 250 miles from start to fin­ish. Below are the updates and some pictures.

Day 2 with the storm start­ing to break up.

Final Update (4/30/13)

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.

Ski­ing up Lyell Canyon with the set­ting sun

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.

 Update from Mam­moth Lakes, CA (4/22/13)

Pep­per and I pushed hard yes­ter­day to get to Mam­moth Lakes, CA. We are get­ting orga­nized and resup­ply­ing now for the next stretch. We skied into town under head­lamps and moon­light in a ~30+ mile day. We camped a few miles south of Tuolomne Mead­ows in Yosemite the night before and had the most favor­able con­di­tions of the entire trip while head­ing over Don­ahue Pass and Island Pass. We even had some pret­ty good turns and corn snow on the descents. I only wiped out once on the descent, which is say­ing a lot con­sid­er­ing I am using leather tele boots and 3‑pin bind­ings with no heel bail (this set-up was the tough­est deci­sion for a weight con­scious hiker—added control/performance vs. weight). I don’t regret my deci­sion now at all con­sid­er­ing the snow con­di­tions have been less than opti­mal. Below 8000 feet ele­va­tion it is a mixed bag. We have had to bushwack through thick brush with our skis on our packs, make our way through talus fields with house sized boul­ders in our ski boots, and hike at least 15 miles of clear, snow-free trail in our ski boots. We should be high­er mist of the way through the next sec­tion, but we have still decid­ed to add the bur­den of car­ry­ing a light­weight pair of shoes just in case.
The first cou­ple of days were chilly and snowy. The weath­er has now tran­si­tioned to full-blow sun­shine and intense solar radi­a­tion. At times I notice that I am still squint­ing despite wear­ing sun­glass­es. The fords have been cold, with ice often flow­ing in the rivers, but none too over­whelm­ing. The biggest thing is the lack of snow. At times we are forced to zig-zag around to stay on snow instead of being able to trav­el a straight line. All in all, the trip is going well. We have cov­ered about 110 miles now and are excit­ed to get into the Sequoia-Kings Canyon Nation­al Park tomor­row. From here on out we are antic­i­pat­ing stay­ing more on the Sier­ra High Route than the Pacif­ic Crest Trail/John Muir Trail due to snow con­di­tions and the high­er ele­va­tions that the SHR maintains.