I skied Mt. Goode above Bishop on 5-12-09 with Vince and Alisa. Getting on snow to skin above South Lake didn't look too bad if you were heading up to the standards like Thompson and Gilbert. We walked for about an hour however on patchy snow to Long Lake. It wasn't too bad, and was certainly beautiful back there. The lakes weren't frozen enough to cross for us, as it had been fairly warm. The snow was great though!

Skiing above South Lake and Lake Sabrina (drove up to look) are still worth doing if you're going to the bigger peaks at the crest. The snow is super smooth everywhere, and deep from 11,000' and up. This general area is a little more work compared to Tioga and Virginia Lakes, where you can still skin on snow from the car easily.

Here's Mt. Goode from somewhere along Long Lake. We went around the back to climb and ski, but it looked like you could sneak down on the steep east face, about half way down the ridge from the summit.


View from the Parking lot at 9750'. To reach Mt. Goode, you go to the left of Mt. Hurd, which is the peak on the left here. Head almost to Bishop Pass and bang a right. Mt. Goode is 13,085'.


Here's a shot of Hurd from the toe of Long Lake. The steep face you see from the parking lot is the snow on the right of the peak. Steep, but not so impossible looking from this angle.








Mt. Goode is on the right. The peak to the left looked like a nice ski, but was kind of insignificant compared to Goode once we passed it.


Neighboring Mt. Agassiz is at the northern edge of the Palisades area. Plenty of snow to get to this 14,000' summit, but it would have been nice to do it last month skinning from the car and over the lakes.




The south side and summit of Mt. Goode.




Reeling it in




Agassiz's north couloirs, with the Palisades to the right and behind. You can make out the snowfield of Thunderbolt back there.


View to the west from the summit


Fun short scramble to the top


View to the south


View to the east from where we came. You can see the snow covered Long Lake, and the unfrozen South Lake peeking out from behind Hurd Peak.










Some locals waiting for the snow to refreeze




Mt. Johnson spied from the trailhead near the parking lot. I got to ski this a week earlier with a mixture of powder up high and corn down low.


Afternoon view from the parking lot. More pics of this area in my Mt. Johnson TR from a few weeks ago. And some fantastic pictures on Bknights recent Thompson TR too.

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Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net