Hi, I'm excited to have found this site through Telemarktips, as I'm hoping to do some skiing in the Eastern Sierra over the next few weeks and I'm hoping to get some snow level/coverage beta, as well as some general advice considering my objectives.

Last Spring I skied the Solstice Couloir on Mt. Dana, and a good chunk of the terrain north of Tioga Pass from a basecamp at Greenstone Lake. So, although I know T-pass allows for the highest altitude starting point in the area, I'd like to try something south, so that I can get to know the range a bit better.

I'd like to ski roughly in between Mammoth and Bishop, as I get the impression that the snowpack will still be fat enough to allow for some full value couloir descents, as well as some linkable touring miles in that area. I'd like to find a couple of trailheads from which I can access day trip peak/couloir descents--South Lake? Convict Lake? I'd also like to take a hike into a basecamp with a few distinct day trips available, or perhaps take a real multi-day tour through high altitude terrain, with covering mileage and seeing a big portion of the range being the goal--Evolution range? Rock Creek canyon?

So, which single run days in the Bishop-Mammoth area are most worth the effort this time of year? Is there a particular chunk of the Sierra where I should look into taking a short-medium length tour? Has anyone been to a place they expected to be snowy, but which was more burnt out than anticipated?

Thanks...

I would suggest picking up a copy of Nate & Dan's new guide book. It is broken by region and will have a ton of info (maps, routes, aspects) for a large number of tours in those areas.

http://www.amazon.com/Backcountry-Skiin ... 0979264464

As far as snow totals and coverage, check the TRs going up on this board, TT and TGR. Seems to be good coverage down there now.

Usually some good beta can be found on splitboard.com also.

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Chris

You have 5 places you can park above 9000' and pretty much skin from your car. In order from north to south are Virgina Lakes, Tioga Pass, Rock Creek, South Lake/Lake Sabrina, and Onion Valley. Any of them will be great next week, and for another month really.

You might as well pick a trailhead with snow coverage. If you don't mind hiking an hour on dirt, any ski tour starting at 8000' will be worthy as long as you are going up high from there. Convict lake is too burned out, at only 7000'.

Rock Creek is your answer near mammoth, but you'll probably want to do your overnight there. The shorter ski tours are getting burned out. Mt. Dade and Mt. Abbot are the gems of this trailhead, which take about 3 hours to get to the base. You could do them in one long day, but camping out at the end of this valley would be great. You could go over the crest and ski Mt. Gabb if you're there for a few days. You can find these pictures of these ski tours on our messageboard.

South Lake in Bishop is great right now. I'd recommend going there for sure. I just posted a trip report with pictures from monday. A few classics you can ski in a day easily are Hurd, Thompson, Gilbert, and Johnson.

Lake Sabrina is above bishop, and requires a little larger effort to get to the base of the peaks, but you can do cool long one day tours there. My trip reports from a few years ago show this terrain. look up Mt. Wallace and Mt. Powell.

You can search this messageboard with it's search feature to find pictures of east side ski tours in the guidebooks.



put some pics of your trip on this messageboard please!
have fun

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

rock creek for multi-day, sabrina/south lake for day tours.

you saw my pics from rock creek. access road to mosquito flat is starting to melt out in patches, but still easy to get in and out. be cautious on the lakes in the afternoon. we crosses most of them but they are probably melting quickly. we camped between long and treasure lakes just above a long skinny meadow.

Hey, anyone know how low the snow goes on Pine Creek road? I was thinking of Feather and / or Mt. Tom and was wondering how much dirt hiking I'd have to do. Thanks...

a lot

When I skied Feather Peak, I walked up the dirt trail 2000'. It was still worth it. The lower mountain is never good skiing anyway in the spring time by the time you get back down. However, most people wouldn't walk dirt for hours when you can do ski tours closer to snow.

The rain we just got could have washed away snow up to 10,000. hard saying not knowing.

let us know what you find!

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

Thanks for the advice! I'll be up there for about 5 days and post what I see...

Mt. Tom? Probably a lot of hiking. Here's a pic from Sunday. This is looking at the more east-facing drainage just south of Elderberry, but I bet Elderberry isn't looking much better. Snow level has gotta be 9-10k, and you start hiking way below that.



Other random pics from Sunday, from south to north.

South Lake:



Emerson/Wahoo/13121/Humphreys/Basin:



Baldwin Cirque:



Esha:



Morrison, Death Couloir (go ski it and post a TR):



Bloody (part of it anyway):



Dunderberg/Green Creek:



Sawtooths:



No pics from Tioga, it was pretty socked in. Note rather high temps forecast for this week, freezing level pretty high (then again, so is the snow level).

Thanks so much for the pics! Helping my decisions :)