skied solstice couloir off dana to chute out off ellery bowl sat (5/1). road not open to park gate yet but close enough to skin on side of road for a bit. great conditions right now w/ a super consolidated base and great coverage. after peaking in solstice on the way to the summit we noticed only one track(if ya call it that) sideslipping down the firm side of the chute (go figure) w/ the gut of solstice untouched and corning up nicely so i opted for that line. damn good stuff. my partners skied dana couloir which held decent edgeable winter snow while solstice had mostly corn w/ some porn up top. still snow on the hike up to the plateau w/ a mandatory scree scramble of a hundred yards or so up top. we were originally gonna ski the powerhouse chutes but they're looking pretty crispy down low. there are a couple of ribbons left that will take you w/in a few hundred feet of your car but we opted for ellery instead where the coverage is great all the way to the car. the chute out couloir actually held some soft pre-corn but not porn winter snow which was surprisingly great as was the corn all the way back to the car.

Way to go Toby! How great was Solstice? Damn, you're having a good Spring.

Awesome. You are having a good spring.

Eat, Sleep, Shop, ****, Breathe.

Tobiasca led us back to the promised land on Saturday. Skied the Solstice Couloir off of Dana amongst a group of about 25 from Reno. There was everything you'd imagine in a group that big - all hitting Solstice at the same time - rippers, sliders, gear losers, knee knockers, etc:

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic23334.jpg" border=0>

We headed to the Plateau next, where we looked into next year's line (when the snow still goes all the way to the valley) 3rd Pillar:

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic23333.jpg" border=0>

Skied Powerhouse to within a couple hundred yards of our car. Don't want to lose an edge on the upper couloir. One in our group slid part of it, but not nearly as far as Soulskier's reported slide.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic23375.jpg" border=0>

Went up Dana Peak yesterday, Tuesday. Beautiful day with light winds, but nothing softened anywhere. We went down the other side to try Dana Couloir, and a wind was blowing straight up it. Refrozen Corn, wind ripples, and looking pretty slick. We went back over the peak looking for anything soft, even at 2pm. Only the lowest stuff was soft.

Should have went for south facing protected stuff, but we hoped a nice sunny day would soften north facing stuff if the wind died down. No dice.

Looks too thin for car shuttles, but still good snow up high.

What good is wind if you don't have a sail?

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

Did Dana couloir this last Saturday --
Got up early and it was overcast and the wind was picking up, so we decided a breakfast at the Tioga Pass Resort was in order. Headed out around 10am. It was chily and the wind was howling, when I had my skies on my pack I was getting tossed around. Ran into a party that booted all the way up ellery and decided not to ski it b/c it was too firm. Also ran into some people that bailed of solstice. We made it back in and booted up the couloir. I had my crampons on an front pointed all the way up. It was firm enough that it was hard to bury the shaft of my axe... Got to the top and decided to go for it, although slowly.. My partner charged in, made it about half way down and blew a turn and started sliding, but managed to pull a hail merry and get back on his feet.. after watching him nearly eat it I decided to ski down with my ice axe, which actaully wasn't too bad... Sunday did false white, which was fun after sat. sketch fest.

Yup saw those guys down climbing way slowly from the top of Ellery early Saturday afternoon. Wind at the top in that no doubt firm steep had to make it double trouble. Had been waiting around early morning hoping for sun to warm things up. When those clouds became ominous I decided to hit the road home so drove over the pass where a little blue sky at the T meadows became much rather quickly so like some loony kid turned back around by Tenaya as I just had to get a little more. Yeah sunny but that wind was howling down by the Ellery dam where it concentrates and it was a chilly 51 degrees. Started skinning up the east side of the bowl but bailed midway when it was obviously still firm and getting worse. Just did the area well below Banana since it had gotten more sun earlier. At one point while making a 180 degreer on the Z up track, a big gust nearly got me airborne awkwardly so I sat down and bagged the climbing gear. Got some fun turns in but balmy mid day Friday coming down from False White was way way more pleasure. Yeah got to gamble and just do it knowing sometimes its really good and other times it ain't.

Had a great trip to Mt. Dana/Tioga Pass/Lundy Lake this past Memorial Day weekend. In the interest of saving bandwidth, I only posted the full TR in one place - http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=246408

But here's a pic to tempt you.

<img src="http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic24724.jpg" border=0>

Jim

really nice pictures. Tnanks! I'm too busy to ski this spring, but that helped.

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

Skied around TPR this past weekend. Around the resort, N-NE facing aspects still had nice boot-top powder. East facing chutes off Dana plateau, annecdotally, had been scoured by east winds. We booted and skied Dana couloir from the summit and booted and skied 'Chute out' in Ellery bowl, both with relatively firm but nice snow.

amir.

Dana couloir:

<img src="http://dimond.amirk.com/albums/album53/IMG_0061.jpg" border=0>
<img src="http://dimond.amirk.com/albums/album53/IMG_0064_1.jpg" border=0>

Ellery chute:

<img src="http://dimond.amirk.com/albums/album53/IMG_0214.jpg" border=0>
<img src="http://dimond.amirk.com/albums/album53/IMG_0171.jpg" border=0>

you dog! i had a spot booked at TPR this weekend but got skunked due to a sick kid. would've been nice to ski those lines with you. nice pics.

Sunday May 10, 2009
For my last day of the season I thought I would keep it short and sweet and tick off a nice aesthetic line, the Chute Out.
As I was heading back down the road from skiing White Mtn on Saturday, I noticed three skiers climbing up the chute at the ripe time of 2:30pm. Hmmm, seemed kind of questionable to me. I know the chute only gets afternoon sun, but still -- if anything, they must be leaving a nice bootpack behind. Let's just hope they didn't mash up the chute proper on the way down.

Here's an early afternoon shot of the bowl and the line in full sun:


And here's a close-up from about 10am.


The sun doesn't hit the main part of the chute until noon. I timed it so that I was headed up it while the climber's left side was still mostly shade, which provided some relief from the pounding sun and better climbing conditions.

approaching the base of the couloir:


the thing about the ellery bowl is its deceptive scale and perspective. It looks so compact and small, but it's pretty freaking large. You think, "it'll take me 10 minutes to make it to that rock," and then 20 minutes later you're still halfway there but you look back and the cars on the road look like specks.

climbing up the couloir was basically simple and straightforward, given the mostly well established bootpack from the previous day, though the sharp things on my feet and the pointy metal thingee in my hand were great aids and always reassuring.

Topped out around 12:30. Kickin' it on the plateau, waiting a few more minutes for the sun to give the chute that perfect kiss:


Dropped in at 1:00. The turns down were sierra springtime steep skiing perfection. Thumbs up to a fun line and good season:

Nice!

I think in the past 5 days or so, probably every steep line around there has gotten skiied... multiple times. :) Coverage up high is great, way better than I expected, and better than this time last year. We rode Solstice and Chute Out/Banana on Sat. We were drinking beers by 1:30. Saw those guys you mentioned and was thinking the same thing. Found out later that I knew one of the guys randomly. Apparently they had never done the chute before, so they wanted to climb up it... but yeah, a bit late in the day. Snow conditions probably OK but I'd be worried about cornices. There are some huge ones up there right now.

Speaking of which, when we had just started skinning up towards Ellery bowl on Sun at about 9 AM, a rock or something fell off the cliffs lookers right of Poop chute, and sent down a bunch of frozen snow bowling balls, some the size of a torso. We kept thinking they would stop, but noooo they kept bouncing all the way down, through us, to the rocks. It was surreal, like human Frogger. Those things were rock hard too. Fortunately nobody took a hit. So be on the lookout, those things are unstable now and can fall at any time.

Oh, BTW if when you were looking at those guys climb Chute Out on Sat, you happened to see someone coming down 120 on a longboard sandwiched between two cars... that was us. :) Granjero rode that thing all the way to the Mo-mart!



I posted a few more pics here on sb.com, hope to get the rest up soon.

My only regret is that I didn't get to witness Glen Poulsen's bday party Dunderberg->Green Creek run apparently involving a group of 50+, and some naked skiing. Some of that group showed up at Powerhouse on Sunday (wearing clothes), we were surprised to see about 10 people pop out of the woods right behind us at the bottom.