We are not parents, we’re mountain guides. Well, some of us are parents, but that’s not the point. Point is, we’re not your parents. Because we’re not parents, we can choose favorites. It’s true; we have our favorite guests. Our favorite guests don’t have any certain level of skill. Nor do they have any particular personality attribute. Nor do they come out with us any certain amount of time. The thing that unites our list of favorite guests is the …
Eastern Sierra Backcountry Snow Report – February 13th, 2015
Backcountry skiers and snowboarders, Happy Friday the 13th! Well, in case you haven’t been paying attention, the Groundhog Day spell has been broken. Today is tomorrow! We had an atmospheric river weather event that put up to around a foot of snow down at the higher elevations. For such a significant moisture tap this was disappointing but this season we’ll take what we get and like it. The bad news is that most of the precipitation fell as rain in …
Eastern Sierra Ice Report – February 2nd, 2015
Hi Ice Climbers, Happy Groundhogs Day. 6 more weeks of winter, according to the little marmot. Hope you are enjoying the warm temps. The ice is hanging in there since last report. There are limited climbs for this time of year, but fortunately some lines that would normally be buried in snow are in great shape. anything that was thin or delicate has disappeared for now, but the fatter main lines are climbing well. Be wary of hollow ice with …
Eastern Sierra Backcountry Snow Report – February 2nd, 2015
Howdy backcountry skiers and snowboarders, It’s Groundhog Day!!! Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow this morning which means 6 more weeks of winter. We had a couple weeks of it so far this season and we are looking forward to some more of it. Fortunately, the Sierra backcountry season really is best and most reliable in what is technically considered spring, but the spring season is usually just better and longer when we have a big winter too. Though we die …
Eastern Sierra Backcountry Snow Report – January 28, 2015
Not feeling too inspired to update the last report, but I figured we all could use another shot of Groundhog Day humor. Maybe we are all becoming better people for living the same dry and stormless winter weather day after day: Unfortunately, this is not looking to be like last year where the end of January yielded a decent winter storm to end the dry spell and we could ski again on Groundhog Day. This year we are currently having …
Eastern Sierra Ice Report – January 21, 2015
Hey Ice Climbers, Hope you get to enjoy the ice before it is gone. We usually don’t say that until mid-March, but this year all bets are off. We all know that ice does not fare well in a warming globe, and that goes for California too, not just polar ice caps. 2014 was the warmest year in recorded California history, by a long shot. December 2014 was incredibly warm and it wasn’t until the end of the month that …
Eastern Sierra Ice Report – January 12, 2015
Howdy Ice Climbers! It’s been an exciting week here on the Eastside. June-uary is in full effect with mega warm temps and amazing rock climbing weather. Unfortunately, this is not good news for ice. After an awesome cold snap, warm temperatures returned a bit too soon, culminating in a Friday evening that didn’t freeze below 8500′. This resulted in late March conditions in early January. We witnessed the center of Horsetail Falls, which was completely covered in ice 1 week ago, …
Eastern Sierra Backcountry Snow Report – January 12, 2015
Hi there backcountry skiers and snowboarders. I hope you have been getting out in the backcountry lately. But not in the Eastern Sierra. Here, cold temps and north winds turned to warm temps and sun, which turned to warm temps with clouds and showers. When I say warm, I mean above freezing temps early Saturday morning up to ~8500′ that contributed to the calving of a large central section of the Horsetail Falls ice climbing area Saturday afternoon. And when …
Avalanche Airbags vs. Avalanche Education?
This fall I went to the first annual California Avalanche Workshop in South Lake Tahoe, California. It was a nicely run event with great turnout and some interesting presentations. For me, one of the more memorable ones was a session by Elyse Saugstad. Elyse is a professional skier and an incredible ski athlete. She has been in numerous films and is a competitive freeskier in competitions. But the reason she is perhaps most famous is that she was one of the survivors of the …
Eastern Sierra Backcountry Snow Report – December 31, 2014
Howdy backcountry skiers and snowboarders! May auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind. Goodbye 2014. We hardly knew ye. And frankly – other than a bare handful of backcountry days that were “the. best. ever.” – I’d be happy to delete your pathetic, dry excuse for a backcountry season from my memory. But here we are in virtually the same situation as a year ago – with a meager snowpack of 30-70cm in shaded and sheltered locations above the …
Eastern Sierra Ice Report – December 29, 2014
Ice Climbers! Brrrrrrrr, it’s cold. Just what we need for building ice! With these temps expect the ice to be growing and attaching well to the cliffs of Lee Vining Canyon and June Lake. Horsetail Falls and Tatums in June Lake are both climbable with caution if not trepidation. Good fun! Roadside Ice should be good for a lazy toprope hero session and appears to have been engineered for this season. Lundy and Parker canyons are good to go …
Eastern Sierra Ice Report – December 23, 2014
Happy Holidays ice climbers! It is warm. Too warm. In Lee Vining Canyon the ice is in, but only really at Chouinard Falls. There are 3 or 4 decent climbable lines there and with high temps today up there reaching the mid-50’s the ice is dropping. Yesterday, our guide Viren Perumal reported the Main Wall was actively shedding ice throughout the day and his photos show a significant loss of ice around the thin edges since last week. Any ice …