Southern Sierra Outdoors: telemark

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Spring Skiing at Virginia Lakes

Ok, to preface this trip, I have to point out that I grew up in Georgia, so snow is not second nature to me. Rebecca is from Wisconsin, so she is used to snow, but the Sierra in Spring is something we normally experience in a kayak, not on skis. With that out of the way, spring skiing is the bomb. We got a chance to get our first taste of back country corn with some friends up in Virginia Lake, just up the crest from Mono Lake.

Some friends of ours, Dave and Alison, have a family cabin on Virginia Lake - a super-cool, rustic 50 year-old cabin. In the spring, before the lakes thaw, you have haul in water from a nearby creek, but in the summer, they have running water straight from the lake.

During the winter this cabin is covered in snow...

The Virginia lakes area has a sequence of lakes; Blue Lake, Red Lake, Virginia Lake and Little Virginia Lake (probably more too that I did not see). Pretty much everywhere you look you see sick slopes leading down to a lake - one of the prettier places I've ever been.

We started off the first morning headed for twin chutes; the "bunny hill". Since Rebecca and I have never skied spring conditions, we had no idea what sort of adventure we were about to have...

Starting our journey up

and up..

At first, skinning up was not too bad; the soft snow gripped pretty well to the skins and going was pretty fast. After a while though, the top layer got so slushy that you could not really traverse without your skis slushing downhill. That combined with the fact that it was too steep to skin straight up made the going pretty tough.

A short pause for a snack and a view

After a while, we abandoned our skis to hike up the rocks first (hiking on shale in ski boots is not ideal), then resorted to postholeing up the rest of the way.

Still going up...

At this point, I have to admit that I was about as gripped as I have been in a long time. Here we were staring down this steep mountain, with nothing to stop you from sliding all the way to the bottom, on snow conditions I've never even made a turn on before, on three-pin tele bindings. Luckily, Rebecca was brave enough to go first and show me that it could actually be done - and that it also happened to be really fun.

First Turns

Dave is mister super athlete who normally snowboards, but decided to take tele skis since that is what we were all doing. Of course he had no trouble carving down the slope either, leaving me with no option but to point my skis down and hope for a carve or two - Georgian Style!

As it turned out, I did not have to slide down the mountain on my butt like I thought, and everyone had a ball cruising down the soft, but carvable conditions. By the time we got back down to the cabin, it was definately cocktail hour.

Eric with an Epic IPA after an Epic Adventure

Spring in the Sierra - Nice!

Emboldened by a few beers and fun drinks, we embarked on a late afternoon ski on Red Bowl just to the West. Copper and Lucy were psyched to join after their day of napping at the Cabin, so off we went.

Copper in the up-track

Rebecca once again leading the way

Copper and Lucy pulling in just behind Eric

On day two, we decided to head up to the top of Red Bowl and give that a shot. The way up was not quite as difficult as the day before - an earlier start and a slightly different aspect allowed us to skin up a bit farther. Once we hit the last steep ascent though, we got to a point where we couldn't go up anymore; the problem was that the conditions again made it hard to traverse. So after another gripping escapade across another steep slope, we made it to solid ground. Here we resorted to the hiking method again and quickly made it to the top.

Glad to be back on solid ground

At the top, spectacular views awaited. Eating lunch on the warm rocks looking over this spectacular vally was quite the reward - and we still had skiing to do!

Rebecca at the top

Dave and Charlie soaking it in

Once again, we found ourselves on top of the world; the slope even steeper than the day before, even less to arrest your fall. Dave and Allison were back on snowboards and quickly took off, making sweet turns the whole way down. The only problem was the slope was too steep for us to even see them. Rebecca once again probed for the tele crew.

Rebecca headed down

To make a long story short, we made it down; all pretense of style thrown out the window. The final runout of the slope ended up right along Virginia Lake with its ultra-blue waters welcoming us to the end of the run. All in all, when I wasn't pooping in my pants, I was having a great time. Certainly the beauty of the area and the quality of the skiing was plenty of motivation to get better on our skis in time for next spring...

Allison and Rebecca traversing the lake

"Can you believe we skied that!"

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Barnard Hut

While the blog has been empty for a while, we have still been out there having fun; we've just been a little to busy to tell you about it. In January, we had a chance to head out to Colorado and play in the Rockies for a while.

Our destination was the Barnard hut; part of the Braun Hut system near Aspen Colorado. Our good buddy Bob has taken us out there a couple of times - including our first venture ever on backcountry skis back in 2005. That trip got us hooked and we have been getting out in the backcountry ever since. This time we were ready to show Bob our new shredding techniques that we had perfected in the Sierra Cement out our back door; unfortunately, our buddy was in the midst of a near-death experience - a systemic infection that left him in the hosiptal. The good news is that Bob is OK, the bad news is we had to ski without him (sorry Bob, we did many a turn for you!). Another Kern Valley Resident, Lynn, made the trip with us; a long time Tele-skier and outdoor nut like ourselves. We met in Glenwood amidst avalance warnings concerns for our friend. As luck would have it, Bob was among the living and we had nearly perfect conditions for the whole trip.

The Ski out to the Barnard hut starts by taking the ski lift up out of Aspen, then Skiing a little over 7 miles out along the ridge line. With packs full of stuff for 4 days, the going was a bit slow, but the scenery definitely kept us entertained

Eric about to be consumed by the snow alien

Rebecca and scenery

At the top of "Skin-up" Hill. Only 1/2 mile from the Hut, but still 1/2 mile too far...

The Hut itself is awesome; nestled at 11,500 ft at the base of McArthur Mountain. Actually more of a cabin now than a hut after its remodel back in 2000, the Barnard hut has great picture windows looking to the South, a patio, a wood stove and a cozy outhouse (still waiting for the syncilla seat cover) complete with a towering, frozen poopcicle. There is no running water, so you have to melt snow for water; the end result is that someone (usually me) is constantly running outside to fill the snow-pot. No matter though, the stove kept the cabin super cozy and the brisk air always feels good.

A view of the Cabin and the surrounding area from McArthur Mountain

The patio in the Morining

The Outhouse with a view!

Can't wait to get out and ski

The hut has some great terrain around - we were able to get to most of it. We started off on some low angle stuff until we got a feel of the avalanche danger; our snow pit indicated that things were more or less stable, but there were a couple of slabs forming in the pack. As we got more comfortable with the conditions we started skiing steeper. Still, the desire to not have to use our new beacons kept us off some stuff, including the Bowl on McArthur that we were able to ski the year before.

Pretty Conditions