great coverage at Virginia Lakes




Met Abe from Folsom


and Ed from Reno. twice my age and charging in the backcountry.














this last shot is from the end of the Dana Plateau last week. Dunderberg is the peak on the left. We skied both runs on the south side. Great corn between 9am and 11am. Wax your skis.




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

Nice pictures Mike.

So it must've been your skin track we followed up Dunderberg yesterday. We were pleased to see Green Creek road open all the way to the campground, so we left a car there and shuttled up to Virginia Lakes. We left early, but were stil baking in the cloudless sky on that SE facing slope climb. We crossed the saddle to the West Peak, enjoyed amazing views, and then descended the North Couloir. We traversed across that long plateau to the top of Green Creek couloir. That thing had a big (but shallow) wet slide down the gut of it, from top to bottom. Depositing a debris pile of bowling balls like I've never seen, just below the choke. Fortunately that wet slide rinsed out the unconsolidated uber-mank and made for some decent corn skiing.

In general, the snow on north and east facing aspects was unconsolidated, roller ball city, mega-mank. The west facing aspects in the Green Creek gully was where the $$$ corn was. Looks like you guys picked a couple of very nice lines on the south side of Dunderberg.

Plenty of folks out enjoying the Sierras this weekend. We hooked up with a group of 8 tele-rippers from the North Shore and Bridgeport area who were doing the same shuttle as us. Another group of 4 was a little behind us, but ended up finishing the trip about the same time. Virginia Lakes, however, got slaughtered on Saturday. When we left in the morning there was a handful of tracks on Olsen, South Peak and Black. When we came back to pick up the car in the afternoon it looked like street vandalism up there. Probably at least 30 cars parked at the end of the road too.

Here's a few pictures:

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40429.jpg" border=0>

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40430.jpg" border=0>

The North couloir off Dunderberg ended up being quite a bit bigger than it appears from a distance. There's a skier in the upper third of the line in this picture, and there's quite a bit skiing below the chute that you can't see behind the ridge in the foreground:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40431.jpg" border=0>

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40432.jpg" border=0>

Since this trip is no secret, here's the route:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40428.jpg" border=0>

By the way, what did you ski off the Dana Plateau last week, Mike?

Dunderberg was elusive with quality corn formation for us at our descent time of 11AM on Sunday May 15. The sky was partially overcast and it was a bit windy around the summit. We were able to boot up the route to the summit at 9:15 AM and in general stayed right on the surface (we had no real need to skin). We burned off some time hiking over to the West summit and hanging out yet the SE slope off the East summit of Dunderberg was still firm at 11AM despite the procrastination. The skiing was still fun and definately not too firm and we had some softer, top-layer slushy/unconsolidated near the bottom which was a nice variation from the firmer snow up higher. We were curious if the snow softened higher up later in the day with the overcast conditions and wind. Ive never seen so many cars at a trailhead in the springtime Sierra other than Shasta in June!

Great meeting ya up there mike (and Jeff). Thanks again for this awsome forum and all the cool TR's you've posted in the past...It's been a great resource... Can't wait to see the new site when it comes on line.

Here's some pics:

Ed bootin up the SE bowl:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40457.jpg" border=0>
Mike hitting the SE upper bowl:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40458.jpg" border=0>

for the 2nd run we hit the s. chute. South peak is in the middle, black mountain bowl in the right. This is at the top of the chute:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40462.jpg" border=0>
deeper in the chute i took this pic:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40463.jpg" border=0>
a day later, the slope released at that exact point naturally(doh!)
see the crown:
post avalanche
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40460.jpg" border=0>
pre avalanche
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40459.jpg" border=0>
Jeff near the bottom of the chute:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40464.jpg" border=0>

Joe,Tucker,
Nice work on cavanaugh that's a fun run Joe. Yeah, the crowds were from the "split-fest". you guys should have stopped by... Met some really cool folks up there this past weekend, seems like just about everyone hit VL this weekend :)

oh yeah, the weather today sucked... Ed and i sat at the top of black for about an hour.... kept waiting for the sun to hit, but she never did... some fun ice skiing down to the car.

splitters stay tuned; i'll post some of the pics with you guys after i eat.

cheers,

abe

http://www.southparkstudios.com/downloa ... ETODAY.wav

Here's the pics from sat/sunday at virginia lakes -- the splitfest crew in action:
http://www.splitboard.net/talk/viewtopic.php?t=726

a couple of pics from that:
Ed topping out on Black Mtn. Looking east towards south peak from black mtn. Splitters climbing the ridge:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40470.jpg" border=0>
weather on sunday:
<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40508.jpg" border=0>


http://www.southparkstudios.com/downloa ... ETODAY.wav

Hey Abe,
It was great meeting you and Ed up there this weekend. Turns out, that slab on the Southern Couloir released right as I approached the area you took the photo from. Bummer, we had planned on skiing that side you had pointed out. We ended up hugging the rocks on the other side though and the snow was amazing. Hope to run into the two of you again.
Christian.

Christian,

yeah, great meeting you guys too. We met a ton of cool people that weekend. If ya ever want to hook up on a trip, send me a PM on www.splitboard.com, username = towelie. (my email here isn't synced up due to a technical issue)
Bummer about that slope. Just glad no one was hurt.

What time of the day did it release?

abe

http://www.southparkstudios.com/downloa ... ETODAY.wav

One day earlier and I woulda got to ski with Mike too!
Next time.

Great seeing you towlie! You took some sweet pics.

Here is a video I made from that weekend.
http://splitboard.com/vids/ginnylakes_2005.wmv

Cant wait for more this weekend. :)

Just saw the viddy. Nice work as always BCR!

All of it was great footage, but man, those were some pretty graceful teleturns by the telenater! Made me feel like tryin' tele :)
loved the snowmobile shots too.

cheers,
abe

http://www.southparkstudios.com/downloa ... ETODAY.wav

It released around 10:30. We were pretty suprised because everything else was so stable that early. You had mentioned that the heat emanating off the underlying rocks plays a role and that must have been what happened here.
Christian.

Eastside Trip 2010
Day Three

Monday, May 10

Again, with the bluebird morning, but "chance of snow showers" in the forecast.

I thought I would be too tired and sore after skiing Kettle on Saturday and Wood on Sunday, but I felt good and decided to hit a quick one before heading back over the hill to go home.

It was a fool's fantasy, but I thought I would give it a try, and the SE bowl of Dunderberg seemed like low commitment and a quick couple grand of vertical.

While the sky was clear, the winds were howling at the summer cabins at Virginia Lakes. It was an obvious sign, but, hey, I'm here, let's do it.

Looks like a nice day (except you can't see the wind trying to blow the camera out of my hand). Snow = rock hard.


Getting toward the upper mountain. Oh, now you can see the wind and blowing snow. That's more like it:


I persevered up though with no real hope of good skiing, driven upward by the mantra, "I'll keep going until I reach the top or I just can't take it anymore." Though I was very wary about reaching the summit ridge, let alone the summit, for fear of getting blown into the jet stream and ending up somewhere in Nevada. Just shy of the summit ridge, maybe about 300 feet vert short of the summit I threw in the towel and made my way over to some rocks to pull the skins. My skins weren't gripping, the wind was starting to give me an ice cream headache, and visibility was getting worse, not better. No more photos, but you can imagine what skiing down frozen textured snow is -- like a full body massage emanating from a jackhammer on your lower legs. I had a good time -- really. Good for practicing technique. I did manage to find a few nice turns amongst the scattered trees, where the new windblown snow settled.
But hey, any day on skis in the mountains is a good day by me.

After that, it was a somewhat eventful drive home, what with making it over Monitor Pass less than 2 hours before it closed and then over Carson Pass in a full-on winter storm whiteout with snow down to 3,000'.

I love spring in the High Sierra -- warm sun, soft snow, birds chirping. You can't beat it.

-josh

now you know you can deal with those conditions you don't have to do it again. Still even rough weather days are memorable in a good way once you're done with them. thanks for all the pics!

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