Mt. Conness and Tioga pics

backcountry · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2008 11:52 pm

SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR MOST RECENT TR POST

Went to tioga today, mainly to get the world famous fish tacos at mobile mart. Oh, and the chocolate cake.

2 1/2 hour drive from my house to the top of Tioga Pass. Appreciating this a little more each year. Leaving my house at 5am this morning didn't get the early start due to some gear repairs we had to make at MMS, but the snow was the same all day anyway. Great corn by noon except in the high couloirs, where it didn't soften.

Thanks to MMS for letting Vince use their tools and work bench upstairs!

I took this pic from Dunderberg a few days ago, looking at North Peak in front and Mt. Conness in back. Was thinking we'de try the "Y" Couloir, left of center here, or go to the summit via the glacier route couloir in dead center. The Y was a little too hard and rock peppered for our tastes, so we went up to the ridge above the glacier instead. Shrund was covered, but they are starting to open in this zone in a few spots. The Conness Glacier itself was smooth and blank, other than a small jumble in the middle.

False White has plenty of snow.

Mt. Dana has snow where you need it. Solstice and the Dana Couloir are covered well. The Plateau is bare, but Ellery Bowl looks pretty good, as does Banana Chute.

Here's the south side of North Peak. Didn't have time to go around and look up the other side for you Rod.

Y Couloir on the left, our route over on the right.

This climb above the glacier was a little steeper and longer than it looked, but is nice and wide. Didn't take too long. Upper section might reach 45 degrees. The Y couloir looked 45 degrees for the whole thing, but needs more snow. The little "S" Couloir down lower didn't go through either. Unless you billygoat it. How's Chamonix treating you Granjero?

At 3pm, we didn't have time to go to the summit without losing the soft snow. Might have lost the tacos and choc cake window too, like last week. This is 2nd class, but might have been a little tricky with the rock hard snow and wind in places. I'd guess at least 45 minutes to climb to the summit from here one way. If you motor, you could do the Y and the summit in a day, or a Conness and North Peak ski. Next Time!

Southwest side of Dunderberg.

Varnet glasses are back. If they make me ski like Vince, I'll take a pair.

Awsome skiing on 30-40 degree terrain all along the route to Mt. Conness.

better look at Ellery bowl, the plateau, and Dana.

The road home kind of sucks. You can pole it without too much effort back past Saddlebag Lake. Then the road seems to go downhill, but then there's still a solid 2 miles of flat road with intermittent asphalt showing.

clarkito · **Joined:** Sat Feb 04, 2006 7:51 am **Posts:** 12

Nice shots. What do you think the time frame is for conditions/coverage there? We were planning on heading to tioga or somewhere out of bishop around the 24th, but its about to get hot and I'm wondering if it will still be good to go.

Any thoughts would be great.

Clark

backcountry · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 9:44 am

You'll have to walk a little to reach snow, but there will definately still be good semi smooth stuff to be found up high on north and east exposures.

I bet there will be some more current pics of that area here from someone before you go. I hope to go to South Lake for a day or two soon.

I've found nice firm corn above 10,000' most of the time, even when it's 80 degrees in Bishop. You do have to go at sunrise, and watch how the snow is holding together by noon.

rod9301 · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 11:58 am

Mike, I was up om Dana Plateau yesterday, Tuesday. We were thinking of rapelling into Liberty, but our rope was a bit short, and the snow looked bullet proof.
Then we tried Ripper, hard snow all the way. We finally went down Coke chute, which was as icy as anything I ever skied. We ended up side slipping a great deal, then, instead of climbing for 15 minutes the ridge above Aspen campground, to ski one of the chutes there, we decided to take the easy way. This involved bushwacking for two hours to end up at the bridge.

A little ski of the plateau ended up being a 8 hour epic.

jimw · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 2:21 pm

Bummer Rod, sounds like you missed the window by a couple days. The winds really picked up there on the plateau on Sunday. We were out there Sat/Sun and had great conditions. On Sat we did the "other chute" off Dana shoulder and Powerhouse, and it was nice. Powerhouse riders left down the drainage still barely links together all the way to 100 ft from the car. Lower sections starting to look moguled! Tons of people hitting Solstice, we counted 15 while we were up there Sat. Sunday we did Kidney. Lots of snow in the chute, but starting to get suncupped. Plus a nice schwack on the way out. Super windy on the plateau that day, I literally got blown over a couple times. Coke chute/3rd Pillar drainages are burnt down low, but apparently the S looking chute on the knob between that drainage and Powerhouse was great snow, reportedly even at 5 PM Sunday! Looked in Ripper on Sunday, lots of tracks. Ellery bowl/chutes looking good. Heading back out there this weekend.

Mike, a few notes/questions:

- Dana couloir may look good from afar, but it's blue ice halfway across the chute. The rest of it looks like windblown crap probably over ice. Haven't heard any reports of good conditions from people riding it. But who knows? Solstice is definitely in good shape and is seeing a lot of action.

- Some splitboarders were out in the Conness area Thurs-Sun, here's their TR:
http://www.splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=5050

- What time did you start from the Saddlebag lot, and when did you top out in the Conness chute? Did you skin across the lake? If the glacier is smooth, I wanna get back in there. That was some of the best corn I've ever ridden. A little worried about warmer temps.

- S couloir doesn't go? This pic makes it look like it does, except maybe that little rock midway down the lookers left entrance:

powderwhore · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 3:21 pm

Jim - you stay over on the south side of the pass and leave the north side for me. :D

Planning on overnighting near White Mtn. this weekend after Sonora on Friday. I guess you could stop by and say hi. Whoa Nellie Friday late afternoon before the hike in.

backcountry · **Posted:** Wed May 14, 2008 7:10 pm

We didn't leave the car until 10:30am. It's about a 4 hour deal to get up to the top of the Conness Glacier Couloir. Half of this is getting to the end of Saddlebag Lake. We only climbed 3000' all day. There are a number of great lines to ski on the way to the peak with fat, smooth snow.

I couldn't see Dana Couloir actual snow conditions. I saw a pic somewhere online recently that showed a bunch of ice. I'd like to think it doesn't go across the whole thing.

High north facing couloirs definately are not consolidated corn snow yet.

You can't look down S Couloir from above, without descending right into it. From our view, it looked blocked where you're talking about by a rock. When you're up there, it's hard to get to a place where you can see it all. It was hard snow too, so we didn't look that closely.

The Glacier was perfect snow.

steeleman · **Joined:** Wed Jul 03, 2002 5:54 pm **Posts:** 76

if you are coming up the road prior to it opening, you can also skin up the summer route to the plateau (i.e., follow the approach hike for the WR climbing route). That saves the saddlebag lake mileage and is a bit more direct. you don't get the advantage of climbing the chutes that way, but those are usually pretty predicatable in terms of coverage and 'shrundage. Plus, this time of year with all the folks out on every peak from Dunderberg to Dana, its becoming a lot easier to get "real time" photo-beta. nice speed there mike getting up there in just a few hours.

jimw · **Posted:** Wed May 21, 2008 5:44 pm

Here's a update from Tioga last weekend. It was HOT! Lots of melt since the previous weekend. But higher elevation stuff was still holding up.

The east lines off the plateau still have some snow up high, but the lower sections are burnt.

Powerhouse looks just about done.

Ellery bowl and chutes hanging in there.

We climbed up Poop chute...

...where the Poop Chute Wine, Cheese, & Chocolate Bar was open for business!

Marmots are out.

Still some nice lines and snow on Ellery.

The cool thing about dirty snow is that your tracks show up really well. You also get a nice base exfoliation. :)

Ellery lines from below. We were descending around 12:30 and the snow was still decent, starting to get sticky lower. Another group came down about a hour later, and had just done Solstice. They reported good conditions.

Ellery Lake starting to melt.

It's cold in there! (but it felt good after the heat from the day)

Mono Lake is not quite as cold as Ellery, and it's really trippy with the tufa formations and the super-saline water. But there's no snow.

Sunday we headed out toward Conness. There was a good solid freeze that night. Stuff off White Mtn looking good (right PJ?).

If your buddy falls through the ice on a lake crossing, make sure you get a picture first. He'll appreciate the humor later.

Backside approach to Conness (summer route) holding up pretty well and looks like it would make for some good riding, but it's south facing and softens early.

North Peak still looking good from the south. We saw a party working their way up there.

Sweeeeet smooth snow from the notch dropping down toward the snow finger and Conness lakes.

S couloir doesn't go from the top. I checked to make sure. :) Turns out the choke above the rock is also slightly narrower than 162 cm. :shock:

Did you know you can sidestep on a snowboard? Me neither...

The snow below that is nice though! Definitely would be worth hiking up.

Snow finger/S couloir area looking good.

Flinty's looking good.

Whippet use #37a (thanks bcrider!)

Careful on steep east-facing aspects with thin coverage over big rock slabs that have been cooking all day. This was (surprisingly) pretty much the only instability we saw over the weekend, aside from some debris that looked to be from cornice drops.

GPS bowl looked good. Too bad we were skinning up it!

The chutes down to Greenstone were in surprisingly good shape, even at 3 PM. Only the lowest sections were really heavy.

Requisite finger-butt pic. Extra credit for including the line with the rider.

More Greenstone goodness.

Saddlebag traverse not too bad. No man-eating suncups... yet.

The lake is still skinnable... barely.

As usual, the road out sucks and is pretty patchy by now. If you want to skin, staying low by the creek is better.

Mo-mart desserts make everything better!

Kinda bummed I won't be there for Mem day weekend this year... but I guess making it out there 5 out of the last 6 weekends sorta makes up for that. :)

backcountry · **Posted:** Wed May 21, 2008 8:02 pm

great post jim. Guess I'm going back down there after seeing that one. Especially that last shot of the choc cake. I buy extra to bring home to those that missed it.

rod9301 · **Posted:** Thu May 22, 2008 6:54 am

Nice, Jim.

It's snowing in Tahoe right now and cold, so maybe the snow will hold a while.

rod9301 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 01, 2008 4:44 pm

Went Saturday to ski North Peak, right couloir. Coverage is fantastic everywhere. Snow was unconsolidated, but should be great in a few days. Dunderberg N side was fully covered with snow also.

backcountry · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 10:30 pm

Went back to Mt. Conness today with a big posse. Great snow on steeps, otherwise too soft from warm temps.

Got to ski the Y Couloir and S Couloir down lower. These are the best lines on the peak, and are filled in really well right now.

I'm done with going around Saddlebag, especially when the road is patchy. Now I see you can just go over a col in a straight line from Tioga Pass Road, on west side of the creek....below False White and White. Duh. A straight line to the Conness Glacier, with only a few hundred feet to drop on the north side of this col. I haven't tried this yet, but I suspect it will cut the travel time some.

Dana is covered pretty well still. Ellery is hanging in there, but doesn't reach the road anymore.

North Peak's South side wasn't great today, there was an old wet slide and a new one in the afternoon covering most of the slope down lower. Temps were 100 in Bishop.

S couloir and Y Couloir are filled in pretty well

Going up the road to Saddlebag and around is really long. By the time you are here actually gaining skiable vertical, it's been 2-3 hours. Sean rocked it on the splitboard today, but probably wouldn't recommend it.

The Y Couloir. Last year this wasn't filled in enough in mid May

didn't need crampons and axe today, ski boots sank in ankle deep even at the top of the climb

Looked like you could get up to the summit of Conness and even ski back down some

We were suprised to find this totally rotten slope above the Conness Glacier with direct north exposure

Warm temps and late spring call for careful route scouting

New wet slide

Going out on the road from saddlebag is a long, toe crushing, frustrating trip if you can't ski all the way.

bcrider · **Posted:** Mon May 18, 2009 11:33 pm

Cool report Mike! 8)

You're getting soft in your old age though...the road is only 2 miles to the lake, piece of cake!

That alternate approach is worth checking out regardless but I recommend still taking the road to the Sawmill CP and then cutting in as opposed to taking the valley the whole way.

There's some beta in these old threads from 3 and 4 years ago.
http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.ph ... hilit=sbag
http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.ph ... =saddlebag

For overnight trips the alternate route is generally more vert than you want to cover with big packs so the trad route is better.
http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.ph ... =saddlebag

One of my fav areas for sure.

Oh....and the road out is only "toe crushing" if you're in those silly ski boot things. ;)

Oh x2...Sean is a wuss! I would totally recommend this tour for splitboards!

backcountry · **Posted:** Tue May 19, 2009 8:32 am

Hiya Chris, nice to hear from you.

I think I can do this tour in half the time next time I go, and show you guys skinning around the world is unneccessary. Especially if the snow on the road is discontinuous.

I think sean (who didn't complain) did pretty amazing. He's only gone bc 5 times or so, and each one was an epic with me.

I can't believe how hard it is to sell splitboards to your average backcountry snowboarder. They need to get on your website and see what's going on. But then again they see those guys with the funny plastic boots and bindings totally blow them away...(cough cough)

jimw · **Posted:** Tue May 19, 2009 3:35 pm

OMG the coverage in Y and the summit chutes looks amazingly good! I take it you dropped into S from the top? Pretty filled in?

You can totally skin from the parking lot directly up to that col this time of year. When that route is snow covered all the way, I think it's better than going up the road to Sawmill and then cutting across. The road out always sucks when it's patchy, especially after a long day.

Is Saddlebag lake still frozen and skinnable?

backcountry · **Posted:** Tue May 19, 2009 5:57 pm

Saddlebag wasn't frozen enough yesterday to be on it. Y and S were easy to ski from the top. I was there a week earlier last year, and neither were skiable.

We had 5 people go through the skiers right entrance of the S couloir, it's probably a little rocky at the choke now.

jimw · **Posted:** Tue May 19, 2009 6:16 pm

backcountry wrote:

We had 5 people go through the skiers right entrance of the S couloir, it's probably a little rocky at the choke now.

Uh, thanks. :)

One of these days I want to get the skiers *left* entrance to S. Seems like it could go with enough snow.

backcountry · **Posted:** Wed May 20, 2009 8:34 am

It might go for a snowboard right now. here's 2 more pics from that day (before we went down the right side)

jimw · **Posted:** Fri Jul 09, 2010 9:18 am

A little late, but here are some pics from a trip to Saddlebag a couple weeks ago. I headed out there with my girlfriend Nicole, for her 2nd eastside backcountry trip. I had heard that the road to Saddlebag was clear but gated, so somehow I got it in my head that it would be a good idea to head up there with the bikes and boards. I was hoping that we might even be able to bike around the far side of the lake, but the path had several large snow drifts still on it (technically I'm now not even sure if biking that path is legal). So we got to do the usual traverse through the suncups from hell, which Nicole was really stoked to experience.

(Sounds like last weekend would have been the primo time to get out there, with the road and boat taxi opening... oh well.)

Some pics:

Plateau: done.

Powerhouse: done.

Ellery: pretty much done.

Dana couloir still looks filled in, but lots of dry hiking to get there.

False White still looking good. Nicole would like to point out that we should have just gone there. (Based on other more recent posts, I choose to believe it looked better than it was, and hence I was not completely stupid to head back to Conness...)

The ride up the road wasn't too bad.

Nice views too.

Backside route up to Conness still filled in at the top.

Still a decent amount of ice on the lake.

Time to start hiking.

Skinning was mostly continuous, with a few dry patches.

The rest was Suncups From Hell (tm).

We climbed up to the right of the waterfall.

Finally arriving at the promised land.

Unfortunately, Nicole was done at this point. Doh!

I climbed up to get in a quick run. Snow finally got better up here. Snow finger looking good.

S couloir:

Doesn't go from the top:

Backside of North peak looking good. B and friends had just made some nice turns up there.

I climbed up to the notch. Was thinking about dropping into S couloir from above, but didn't feel like dealing with a downclimb around the rock. I must be getting soft in my old age. :) View from above the S:

The snow was soft and super heavy by the time I headed down the snow finger. Still fun, but not exactly a great payoff to work ratio. Even worse for Nicole, who got to make about 5 turns on super suncupped snow on the way back to the super-fun traverse...

... where we got to play in more suncups!

I say, Got Suncups??

OK. The one good thing about the trip was that when we finally got back to the dam, it was SOOOO nice to just get on the bike and coast 10 minutes down the road, instead adding the insult of hiking another 2 miles down the damn thing.

After dinner and dessert at the Mo-mart, all Type 2 suffering was forgotten.

Nicole had never been to the hot springs by Mammoth, so we camped out there and had them to ourselves in the morning. Well, us and the cows. Nothing to get your morning started right like yoga and natural hot springs with killer eastside views, accompanied by cows humping!

Mt. Conness and Tioga pics

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