3/22/08. Always lurk here so decided to post. Usually post on splitboard.com.
I decided to do a line on the very southeast toe of the Dana Plateau this morning that I've done twice before. Left Truckee at 4:30. Both previous times w/ excellent corn conditions. The funny part is, all three times I've done it now I approached it 3 different ways.
I brought my new Canon elph I just got and it came w/ a 16mb memory card. Well, I found out that's about 6 pictures. I don't know what format I was shooting for it to hold so few pics, but w/e. So, all you see is all I took.

I don't have a pic of the chute from afar, so here is a google earth pic w/ Dana, Kidney, and Plateau chutes for perspective:


Sierra's finest. Lots of skinning on this stuff on approach:


It takes a bit of sidehilling to get to this chute, but it's worth it. I parked right below the approach for the Coke chute btw.
Here's looking up it near the bottom. It doglegs to the right looking up:


My ugly mug w/ sunscreen all over my lips and mono lake:


Looking down from my perch. White Mts. in background:


The snow was good. Not really corn per se (silly word), but some transitioning wintery snow and windboard w/ a soft layer from the sun which was mighty good.
The lower angle northeast aspects I usually find corn on on the way back was mostly wind hammered funk. But w/ some scouting you could find nice smooth lines w/ wintery snow. Lower down I found some really good corn on lower angle slopes and milked the *** out of it. It was tasty.

Gibbs:


Ok. I've always thought this would be a radical line. It looks reeeeally steep. Wondering if anyone has skied/ridden this. It has to be well over 50 degrees at the top.

nicely done. i think thats the line i always look at when parking at the bottom of the plateau but i've never skied it. how did the kidney chute look??

thanks a lot for the contribution. Made me want to go. We're definately slipping into prime time.

here's a pic of the plateau from a big year.


here's a shot of kidney couloir from Gibbs, which is that line of snow in your google earth map. I've found this to be soft a few times, when nothing was softening anywhere else.
This isn't my pic, but I forget where I got it already. Probably from someone on our forum.

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

Never got up to look at it. There were a couple ski tracks coming outta the canyon and I'm betting they'd know.
I'm sure it's pretty darn good though.

Headed down to tioga on wed nite around 10pm, found a good camp poach on mono lake picnic area with grass to sleep on! sick! Headed up to check out coke chute for the first time.
After a bit of furious combat skinning, and thwaking through the thick stuff down low, we popped out under baldwin...looks so good right now.

we started bearing skinners right up and over the knoll to get to the the basin under the plateau and got our first look at coke chute obscured by some clouds. pretty cool.

We werent sure about which way of coke chute looked best from here, so we skinned as far as snow conditions allowed, couple inches of soft on firm and supportable, but hard to skin on....and built a plan to boot the climbers left side of the chute. good booting snow, but dont fall w/o an ax or something to arrest with.

Good conditions with a good crew. STOKED!

I busted ahead and out on the rock band while the rest of the group stayed in the snow, i was tired of the exposure w/o tools... heres the view of the crew finishing the snow climb...

It is amazing down there right now, good snow quality and levels. So much cool stuff!

I LOVE CALIFORNIA!!!

Good skiing throughout the whole run...so fun.






Third Pillar, liberty and gutter...couldnt tell if 3rd is in yet? anyone?


Skiing through v bowl was soggy but still pretty good even at 2pm, just go fast and dont fall....
awesome day! Its getting into prime season! stoked.

pow>corn

5/12/10
Jimw, being a good ambassador of the plateau hooked me up with w/ Steve (breadbox) and Kevin Smith (guy in pics in bcd's book) to climb third pillar. We thought it would be good, but it turned out to be highly variable. So, we decided to walk over and check out powerhouse and every line was $$$. A great day and a great run. Nice to ride w/ a couple of strong rippers and impressed w/ breadbox's circa 1943 K2 eldo, 170cm, DYI splitty. That thing has seen some days!!!





one day I will climb that beauty!:


breadbox:






VIDEO:
http://vimeo.com/11734877

Went up to (where else) the Dana Plateau last weekend, during yet another "plateau-cherry-popping" mission - this one for scwalbster from splitboard.com. We climbed Powerhouse both days. It's holding up well, though pretty much every chute in that drainage was tracked by the end. Can still ride to within a 2-minute walk to the car. V-bowl is getting burnt. Coke/Ripper/3rd Pillar chutes cirques still holding good snow. Liberty even looked good. Some of the cornice broke off and actually smoothed things out to the point where it looked rideable from the end of the rap point (I retrieved my rap anchor though, so bring your own... :)). The snow there was super wet though and the cornice was huge and... breakable. On Sunday we climbed Powerhouse again, and went across the plateau, down into Glacier Canyon, and up the shoulder of Dana, to "Unknown" chute, which was very nicely filled in and pretty awesome. Cool to get in it untracked... mainly because the road wasn't open. And yes it sucks getting up there when the road isn't open. Got a nice view of the road, which is totally clear up there. Dunno why it's not open yet. Lots of coverage up high. With the cold temps now keeping things in check, it should still be good up there for a while. Cornice fall is going to be a real issue when the temps warm back up, there are some huge ones up there.

Here are some pics.

Climbing



Schwalbster surveys the scenery on top of the plateau for the first time. Not bad.



Solstice



Unknown



Third Pillar



Liberty





Powerhouse fin



"Bermuda Triangle" (according to JayTe)



Sunday, climbing again. Is that a track up there in Bermuda Triangle? :)





Riding into the "unknown"...



Conness and North Peak looking very fat. Hwy 120 looking very clear.



View west off the shoulder of Dana



Don't climb on the edge of the frickin' huge cornices. (J/K... optical illusion. He's not really on the cornice, it just looks like it in the pic.)



Unknown. Filled in differently at the top this year. You can ride it straight from the top, but the entrance hallway will probably melt out soon.





Glacier canyon



Schwalbster in a familiar spot





After riding that diagonal line above my head... stoked!



WTF? Saw this parked in Gardnerville on the way home. Pretty sure they were heading to the Mo-Mart... :)

Back to - you guessed it! - Dana Plateau again for Memorial Day weekend. On Sat went to Squaw for some lift-served so that my girlfriend Nicole could get used to her new AT setup (1/2 off demo gear at Mammoth Mountaineering!). Liketoride made a guest appearance, and we had some fun turns in super heavy wet snow. Then down to Tioga, where the road was open to the gate, and we met up with Larry and jbaysurfer, who was also itching to pop his plateau cherry. Sounded like Sat was the day to be out there; we heard tales of powder in Dana couloir, and porn in Powerhouse. But we still found some goods on Sun/Mon.

V-bowl is getting burnt. Pretty much done. Though I did talk to one guy who rode Coke chute on Sat, and rode a good portion of the way down next to v-bowl in the trees; he said the hike out wasn't too bad.



Powerhouse still goes all the way.



Ellery is in great shape!



Tons of people heading up Dana on Sun (at least 10 in this pic alone). Most of them either turned around by Solstice and rode back down the corn on the west-facing approach slopes, or went to the summit and continued to Dana couloir, which looked awesome. No ice this year! There were a few tracks in Solstice too; not sure what the entrance situation is like. Certainly there's a huge cornice there.



Instead, we headed over to Unknown chute, which was closer, and untracked. This was Nicole's first eastside backcountry run. She even says she still likes me. :)





Jbay:



Jbay stoked. Nicole tired.



Up to the plateau.



Liberty snow cave. Unknown visible at the top middle right.



Down and out Ellery, catching it on the refreeze.



Monday it was a bit colder and windy, and we opted for a late start and short tour - Ellery fit the bill. Here's Larry celebrating his 62nd birthday by climbing and riding Ellery bowl. He said after he got back he was going to sign up for social security. :) Cool clouds out that day.





He and Nicole rode the bowl back to the car in nice corn. Jbay and I went searching for some chutes. Chute Out looked nice, but it had a track in it.



So we went over to what I think is called S couloir, and it was untracked. Great porn, becoming corn down low. Jbay got this shot w/my camera of me dropping in. I wish I had kept the camera and gotten a shot of him about halfway down, cuz there's a nice Powerhouse-fin-like spot in there. Next time.



Pretty damn good conditions for Memorial Day weekend! Weather hasn't looked so great since though... pretty much straight to summer!

BTW... HUGE thanks Mike for getting Nicole's boots dialed (and for just generally hooking us up bigtime)! She was able to ride both days after that w/no problem. You rock! :)

planning to head to dana on saturday. how did the climb up to the peak look from the road? any idea what conditions are like in thecolouir also did the ellery chutes and bowl still look in good condition.

Here's an update from someone who was out there Sunday:
http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewt ... 997#956997

I would think it would be good out there this weekend.

We skied Ellery Bowl yesterday, nothing to write home about, but not completely horrible considering it is officially summer. There were some sun cups (obviously), but with some binoculars at the car you could avoid a lot of them. We skied the far lookers right of the bowl, and there were still some decent turns to be had, but were definitely for desperate skiers ... which we were. I would suggest some binoculars so you can look for sun cups and pick your line from the car.

Below is a picture taken June 23rd with our route in red.

Have fun!

Shot of Dana Plateau as of Sunday (from my buddy Colin) take while in en route to Tuolumne for some trad climbing. Pretty bare:



Meanwhile, up by Conness and North Peak, they are very FAT. When Saddlebag opens up, definitely some good skiing up that way.