Decided to take advantage on the meager snow pack here in the coastal range and explore some new areas. Just north of Hull Mountain lies Plaskett Meadows. Black Butte stands out as the peak to ski here. I drove up from Stonyford, north past Elk Creek. About four miles later is 162/FH7(forest highway 7). Twenty-seven miles up the FH7 is Plaskett Meadows. The pavement ends after about 10-12 miles.
I skinned up the patches to the summit, 1000' above me.


The clouds were like a sea. Hull Mountain from the summit of Black Butte


There wasn't much snow even at the summit (7448'). But Snow and Hull looked pretty white. The lakes at Plaskett Meadows are supposed to have some good trout fishing. I drove down there but couldn't see anything 'cause of the fog. So I drove back to Stonyford and up to Letts Lake by Snow Mountain.

The fishin' was good!



Epic fall colors




The rain started at 8:00pm. It rained all night. Hard. Woke up and drove to the trailhead but found only rain and warm temps. Not wanting to take a shower until I got home, that's exactly where I went next. I'm sure that it was snowing on the summit.
Black Butte is a great steep, rocky peak with 1000' fall lines all around. Especially east and north aspects. The soon to be snowed-in campground at Plaskett Meadows, with it's trout fishing will be a great basecamp. Much more on this place in the near future...
One last shot
The Stonyford Gorge Dam

jibC and the new machine.



Black Butte @ Plaskett Meadows



We were able to drive all the way up to Black Butte, so we didn't get to use the machine much. Still waiting for deeper snow. When it gets deep enough, the approach will be about 18 miles.
Got to ski an area on Black Butte that we named Black Beauty Ravine.


Nice and steep for about 700'-800' then it mellows out for another 200'-300'. Some really nice steeps. Everything was north facing, so we were skiing on ice. Some really nice climbing here though.


jibmaster between a rock and some hard ice.


Hull Mountain from the summit of Black Butte


Snow Mountain


jibC and his new toy with the Sierras in the background.


We were able to drive the jibmachine about half-way up the road to the summit of Black Butte. We had a pleasant 1/2 skin to the summit and then dropped the north facing ravine (Black Beauty), back down below the huge cliff and traversed left to the ridge. Snow was a little thin down lower.
Excellent ice climbing routes here. The lakes at Plaskett were frosen over. Saw some bear tracks up near the summit.

thanks jib!

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

Headed up to Black Butte from Covelo this morning. From 1 mile below Mendocino Pass where they stop plowing the road, it's 8.5 miles to Black Butte. I started skinning at 8:00 am. By noon I had gone 6 miles, about 2000'. The road is pretty flat. I still had 2.5 miles to go. Roughly 2 more hours to the summit. I was pissed. For the last hour my acl was giving me problems. A lot of pain in the back of the knee and even some pain in the front where the pin is. The snow had started to get drier and the winds where howling. The readings at the weather station at Mendocino Pass - 5420' (it's on a hill above the pass), said the winds were reaching 35 miles an hour. I'm pretty sure at the top where I was - 6600' - they were approaching 50 mph. Perfect for drying out the top layer of snow which was sitting in the sun at 45 degrees f. I was looking forward to some epic pow on the north angled, shaded, old growth covered Black Beauty Ravine. 1000' of steep trees. It was the perfect day. Not too hot, not too cold. I was feeling good. Just the right amount of water and food, with plenty of rest.
I decided to bail. It was a painful decision - pun intended - but I didn't think that skiing the steeps would be a good idea today with my $10,000 knee acting up. After 4 hours and 6 miles of skinning, I returned on a pain in the knee flat road in 1.5 hours. I put my trusty Freerides in freeheel mode and cross-country skied on down to the Jeep. If I had continued it easily would have been a 10 hour+ day.
The only thing that made me feel better about the day, was just as I was taking my skins off, I heard the coyote's. 10 or 12 to 1 are not very good odds.
Other than all of that, I had a great time. It was a lovely day in the mountains. The air was so clear. The Yolla Bollys to the north were buried deep in snow as was Hull, Snow and Sanhedrin. The snow coverage where I was at was very good. A lot had melted down low, but once I gained some altitude, it was still 4-5 feet deep with 6-8 foot drifts. Saw a fox and many birds.

Finally got the pics from my last trip to Black Butte.
This was taken about 2 miles from Black Butte and about 6 miles from Mendocino Pass.



Looking north to South Yolla Bolly(Mt. Linn)


The north side of Hull Mountain as seen from the FH7 on the way to Black Butte from Mendocino Pass


looking north to Anthony Peak


what happens to coyotes in Round Valley

Headed out to Covelo and up to Mendocino Pass with jibC and Drjib.
Sorry for the lack of quality/quantity of pics - forgot to bring extra batteries for the camera. The camera kept dying on us, so we had to snap pics quick.
Was able to drive all the way to the pass. JibC drove the snowmachine while Drjib and myself got towed behind. 7 miles later we arrived at the base of Black Butte. The snowmachine got stuck a little lower than we would have liked due to powder snow and all the weight of towing us. So we left the machine and started skinning to the summit.

Somehow, on the drive up, one of my vintage ski poles lept out of the back of jibC's truck. One of the reasons I like my ski poles so much is because of the huge baskets. Now I was down to one pole. I didn't think it would be a big deal. Drjib was also at a disadvantage with his poles having such small baskets. We were skinning up deep, unconsolidated mank. Hully cow! We had a very difficult time skinning up the steeps. Drjib's poles would stab deep into the snowpack and were useless. I was struggling with my one pole. We fell over many times. Kinda like not unclipping from your pedals while mt. biking. Needless to say, jibC kicked our asses and summited first.

This was my first time to Black Butte in the dead of winter. The other times I had been there was either early season or spring when the snowpack was fairly thin. I was looking forward to skiing Black Beauty Ravine from right off the summit. It's a really steep (I wanna say 50 degrees, but I'll settle for 40) chute that empties into the old growth below.
We were not denied.

Looking northeast from the summit towards Black Beauty



jibC and Drjib getting ready to drop in


The mank turned into bottomless POWDER!!! :D
The Coast Range represented with avy-free conditions as always!

jibC getting caught up in the steep and deep of it all in Black Beauty Ravine




I found the skiing to be easier than the skinning with only one pole




We skied the trees below the chute and traversed right to scope out some lines next to the big cliff. There are some really gnarly lines to be had here. I almost dropped this line.

It's a hanging snowfield that ends with what looks to be a ten-foot or more air at the end. In more consolidated, corn conditions the snow might actually stick to the rock. If the batteries hadn't of died in the camera, I would have some more pics of the awesome terrain here. There is an excellent, long, skinny chute that divides the cliff in two. It looked sweet.

We took a high traverse left and caught the ridge and skied on down to the snowmachine, which we dug out and I caught a nice 7 mile ski back to the truck while Drjib hung on for dear life behind jibC on the machine.

This place is incredible! Anyone with a snowmachine needs to ski here.
I'm coming back for sure!

_________________
Coastal Crest Snow Patrol
http://www.zazzle.com/jibmaster
http://www.earnyourturns.com/3878/ccsp-guide-2-mendocino/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jibmaster/

Skied Black Butte with jibC on Wed., March 1st.

Mendocino Pass


The Forest Service showed up. We were just leaving when they arrived, so we didn't talk to them. I was hoping they were going to fix the weather station, but then I realised that it was March 1st - they were probably headed for Anthony Peak to do the monthly snowdepth check.


The snowmachine took us up close to the summit. We had to skin for about 20-30 minutes to reach the top.
It was off and on sunny/snowy all day.

jibC dropping in off the summit into Black Beauty.





We headed right and got on top of the large cliff in order to drop this line that we named Black Butte Chute.





Our tracks exiting the Black Butte Chute




getting my jib on -




jibC






The snow was deep and soft, although a little manky. After a couple of hours of checking out all sides of the large cliff for more lines, we were soaked and headed back to the snowmachine for the 7 mile ride back to the truck.

_________________
Coastal Crest Snow Patrol
http://www.zazzle.com/jibmaster
http://www.earnyourturns.com/3878/ccsp-guide-2-mendocino/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jibmaster/