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After Charleston it was nice to hang out with my brother. We went and had a nice dinner and had a decent but tired time in Vegas. After sleeping in I got out of town about 3 pm. I headed out of town and took the US93 route up to Great Basin National Park. The goal for tomorrow would be Jeff Davis and if it looked good Teresa Bowl from Wheeler. I grabbed some sweet pics of Wheeler at sunset on the way north. Then I headed to Baker and got a room in town.

I got up at the crack of 4am and got ready. Heading up the Wheeler Scenic Road it became apparent that Wheeler wasn’t in anymore. Oh well Jeff Davis it would be for today. I geared up and started skinning through the trees loosely following the Bristlecone Trail. It was stunning. The East Face of Wheeler dominated the views. The bristlecones gave the basin a primeval feeling. I snapped a ton of pics with a new(used) medium format camera that I recently won off ebay. The Mamiya 645 afd is about 1.5 lbs more than my Nikon but I thought the Snake Range would deserve it. I think that I was right.

I skinned over to the North Slopes of Jeff Davis and booted straight up. When I got to the top I was happy to see the condition of the Northwest Couloir. I had been planning to just ski the North Slopes but I was jonesing for something steeper. And oh boy was it good, though I wish it had gone to the valley floor it was still really nice to ski.

On the way back to Colorado I found out that my Mother-In-Law was sick so I blew off the next 2 days and headed home. 7 out of 10 days of great days in the mountain. Who could ask for more. Now it’s time to get focused on the kitchen. It’s been a great season for sure.

Wheeler Peak sunset shot from US 93

Sunrise

A look at Jeef Davis and Wheeler

Alpenglo on the the peaks

This one and the rest from the mountain were shot with the new Mamiya. I like it.

A look at the gully on the north slopes and the top of the NW Couloir

Making it into the basin

Sweet trees

Looking north to Mt Moriah

Skin Track Stoke

The top of the line. MMMMM

Looking down the line

Perfect creamy corn. So sweet

These skis are so fun. I love them

Lehman caves

This place was so cool

My kid thinks it looks like the snot cave

Kind of reminds me of the art/sets from Alien

Though snot might be about right

It was otherworldly

My son thinks this one looks like a monster city

I think its awesome

The famed Parachute Sheid formation

A beautiful good bye from the Great Basin.

After a visit to the beach and some business in Southern California I headed up to Vegas to meet up with my brother. We got some dinner and headed up to the dolomite campground in Lee Canyon. The plan went like this. We were leaving a car at the Mary Jane Falls trailhead and we were going to ascend from Lee Canyon. Head up to the ridge and meet up with the Mt Charleston North Loop trail. Summit and ski Hourglass. Descend with raps down the valley to our waiting shuttle vehicle.

We headed up through  the ski area and hooked up with doogleg. I’m sure there’s a name for it but I don’t know it. Once on the ridge we connected with the trail. The going was pretty easy until we got to the Devils Thumb area. Here we encountered steep sidehilling and eventually put crampons on. The entire way I was a concerned with the temps. It was approaching 80* and I was a bit concerned with the level of melting that we were seeing. Once at the hourglass we opted to climb it to inspect the snow. About 700 vert from the summit we called it due to waist deep post holing. I just couldn’t risk getting my brother slid. I’d never hear the end of it from my parents.

The ski was great and I look forward to going back to get it from the summit. These mountains are really cool. We headed down to the end of the snow and began out hike out. We got to a 40 footer and set up a rap. That was fun. Further down we encountered a waterfall. We couldn’t see the bottom from a couple aspects and realized that we didn’t have enough gear for another safe rap station, with the available anchor points.I think 2 55m ropes would be needed to make this route happen. The painful was reality. Time to add on another 2000′ of vert. We climbed back out to the trail. The bonus however was a really fun 1500 vert of extra skiing down the Dogleg chute we ascended in the morning.

Not too worried about missing this one. Las Vegas had temps up to almost 120* that day. I suspect the mountains topped 80*. I’d turn around again if I had to do it again.

Way to step up Bro. It was a hard day for sure but you handled it like a champ. I really enjoyed seeing you and it was a day I will remember for a long time.

Entering the dogleg gully

Good climbing snow

Such a beautiful range

The trees are pretty cool too

The Hourglass Couloir

I really like this shot Bro

Steep sidehilling Yuck

Looking at the entrance to Hourglass

Heading up

Decent skiing

Checking my sluff

At the choke

Looked like a fun glissade

This was a really fun line

Moving fast

Looking back at the route

The Rappel

Nice form Bro

Such a beautiful place. I'll be back for sure

After the unplanned day off and a few capsules of amoxicillin I was starting to feel better. I had arranged a day use permit for San Gorgonio before I left Denver. The thing was it was only good for the 3rd. So feeling better I geared up and went for it. This is a long trip at 14.2 round trip with 4600 vertical. It was a really nice solo. None of the skiing is hard and it was really cool not seeing a soul so close to so many. I was expecting to run into people for sure but I was alone all day.

The skiing was great and it was really nice to get the highest peak in Southern California done. I was actually pretty fast considering the distance with a summit time of 4:50 and 8:40 for the round trip. If your in the area this is a fun trip. The San Bernardino Mountains are beautiful. The next time I’m in the area I plan on trying to get Baldy or San Jacinto.

I shot video of this line but my hard drive failed yesterday. It’s at geek squad for recovery so if I get it back I’ll post it up.

Traffic. It's part of any vacation experience.

I guess the smog makes for nice sunsets

Nice

Hotel 4Runner

I like this tree

1st view of the peak

View of San Gorgonio from Dry Lake

San Jacinto from the summit

A view from the top

Good looking stuff

Me and John met at the hotel at 5:45am to cloudy skies. We discussed our options and decided to call it. I went back to bed and woke up at about 10:30. As I was leaving town I thought it might be a good idea to see how far up the road to Bloody I could get. Maybe go for it maybe not. I called John back and his wife dropped him off. Up the road we went. We managed about 1000 feet of gain before we were blocked by snow.

W hiked and skinned back to the apron of the couloir where we eventually called it due to boot top slush. Neither of us wanted to see what it would be like in corn that deep on a 42 degree slope. we still managed about 3000′ of gain. Not to mention the fact that it’s wicked beautiful back there.

It was great meeting you John. Too bad the weather didn’t let us get this one done. It would have been a nice ski for sure.

After dinner I was heading out of town and got a call from my wife. Turns out my kids and myself had strep throat. Sweet, no wonder I was feeling like such shit. My plans for Langley were dashed. I needed a day off and some antibiotics. Off to Bishop I went.

As high as you can drive

I was captivated by this multi colored mountain

Laurel Lake

A look up the Bloody Couloir

As high as you can get when you start at 2:15pm

The skiing was decent, what we got of it

John photo slut extrordinaire

Well after visiting my brother after Mummy we had some dinner in Vegas and I was back on the road. I got to Beatty and started to feel really hot, even with the windows down. I knew that I had a fever. I figured if I got a good nights rest that would take care of it. I got a room in Beatty and slept until about 11. I felt better and got on the road. Now my goal was to make it to Tioga Pass in time to ski that afternoon. I made good time and got to the pass with plenty of time to ski. I headed up the west slopes through good corn. This was gonna be quick and fun for sure. I made decent time summiting in about 2:15 minutes for the 3200 vert and 3 miles. I snapped some pics and took a look at the Dana Couloir. It was already shaded and I was wondering if it was glazed over with a crust. I had found such nice corn on the west ridge I opted for the known and made my descent. It was super nice, can’t stop for anything snow. I was back at the truck in 35 minutes. So Money.

A Look at White Mtn Peak from Nevada

Getting Ready at the Top of Tioga Pass

On the way

Looking back

This is a cool looking peak

Me

Not Much Further

A Look at the Dana Couloir

Range of Light

This should be fun

Looking South

On the way up to Park County I got a call from Chris (cdlv on tgr) he was callint to invite me to do Mummy. I had planned to do Little Bear and Ellingwood, but wasn’t up for that solo. Then my plan changed to Shavano and Tabeguache. On Quandary I realized that my plans to try and get multiple peaks in a day in Colorado were not going to happen. The temps at night were just too warm. I called Chris back and told him that I was in. After Quandary me and Dan met up with the SkiLogic crew for some product testing for at A-Basin. Such fun skis. At 4pm I was on the road to Vegas. I arrived at 3am and got 3 hours of sleep before Chris and Oscar woke me up. Oscar had skied the route we were planning last Wednesday. The plan was to go up the Beautiful Couloir then hit the summit and ski the Diagonal Couloir. We made decent time to the snow. Things got interesting here with 2 waterfall sections to negotiate. These mere tricky but manageable. I pressed on to the dogleg of Beautiful and took a little break, while waiting for Chris. He made his way into view so I pressed on. Before entering the couloir proper I waited again. At this point Chris let me know that he had hurt his hip in the waterfall area. He was going to ski down and meet us in the Diagonal.Its so important to stay with your partners. Communication is vital to a safe outcome.

The Beautiful Couloir was nice and spicy. Id say the steepest section was about 52 degrees with an average of 45. I didn’t have crampons or an axe and was a bit gripped with just a whippet. But the bulk of it was soft enough to put in a good step. Once on top we hiked to the summit and met up with some crusty locals. The views were great. It so strange being in different mountains. Even the pine trees smell different. After snapping some pics we hiked down about 50 vert to the snow and strapped them on. We skied over to the entrance of the line and enjoyed nice turns down to the down climb to the Diagonal Couloir. This was also spicy. But the limestone of the Spring Mountains provided great purchase over the 80 foot cliffs. Once in the Diagonal it was sweet corn at about 42 degrees at the top and in thehigh 30s the rest of the way.

It was so fun getting out with you again Chris. Looking forward to next year. Great meeting you Oscar. Come visit sometime and I’ll show you around some Colorado mountains.

Such a cool zone

Heading up to the waterfall section

Looking up at the Beautiful Couloir

Oscar leading the way.

Such nice views

Sporty climbing in the couloir

Looking back down the coolie

Looking down the couloir from the top

Mt Charleston is on the hit list for this trip

Griffith Peak looks very nice

OK lets go skiing

The skiing off the top was good.

This was a fun section leading to a downclimb into the Diagonal Couloir

Some exposure on the downclimb

Oscar dropping into the Diagonal Couloir

I think this one came out pretty cool

Chris getting some

Diagonal on left and Beautiful Couloir on right.

And so it begins. The start of a 12 day road trip spanning 4000 miles and 4 states. The kids safely on the way to grandmas for 2 weeks its now time to ski. I drove up to Alma and the Kite Lake Road. I parked at the snow line and ran up to try and get a view of Cameron’s South Face. It wasn’t in so we had to come up with something else. Quandary seemed like it would be the way to go. We car camped up Wheeler road and got a nice early start a 6am. The freeze wasn’t all that hot that night so early was a good call. Cristo is such a straightforward route. Up and down easy. The corn was the best of the spring. It was great getting out with you Dobish, Hans and Dan. See ya when I get back.

Sunset on the way up

Mount Sherman's East Side Looking good

On the way up

Looking back at the dam

Getting there

Dan Turns it Loose

Dobish drops a knee

Dobish with Clinton in the background

Dan enjoys the corn

Hans looking good

Dan having a blast

Hans feeling the groove