Last gasp skiing trip teaser

They say there is no snow in the Sierra this year, Laura has been posting pics almost every weekend proving that wrong. For the most part it is above 10,000 feet, which means some effort is required to get to it.

We headed in from Virginia Lakes on Sat May 24. It wasn't long before we had to walk across snow fields and our walking shoes got pretty wet before we switched to skis and started skinning up over the pass and with a little bit of steep snow and rock scrambling and a bit of fun skiing to Summit Lake.

Grey Butte reflected in the small melted part of Summit Lake

home sweet homes

We set up in a dryish spot and relaxed and ate delicious foods. Appetizers were flavored triscuits with brie and gouda and then bacon wrapped sirloin with bacon mashed potatos and pesto... (yes, this was a trip with Laura, so Moose Lodge hospitality was in full effect.

bacon wrapped steak with bacon mashed potatoes and pesto = YUM

The next day we skinned up a nice bowl and then higher on another slope and skied down. That was so much fun we did the bowl again. There were nice clouds making for interesting light. We took lots of pics.

Laura drops into the bowl

and continues to the creek

an epic fail attempt at a handstand w/ skis

That night dinner was my turn for dinner - I brought dehydrated curried lentils with sweet potato. Luckily we still had some crackers and brie and gouda too.

I tried to get some night pics when I woke up at midnight. I got a few, but I couldn't figure out the K3 cameras modes that I thought would help.

Memorial day we packed up and headed out. It was amazing how much less snow there was on the way out compared to hiking in. That meant hiking instead of skiing back from the pass, but it wasn't too bad. Then a stop at the Whoa Nellie Deli and on to the Tufa at Mono Lake to take pics. I got brought out the big lens and took a bunch of detail pics and pics of gulls and osprey.

osprey bringing a stick to the tufa top penthouse suite

same pic - cropped in even more

There will be more details and pics in a trip report eventually. I'll put the link here when it is done.

and here it is:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/lastski2014.html

Mt Humphreys Triathlon with Sam (4-23-11) teaser report

Sam was passing through so we decided a mini-sufferfest was in order. We really wanted to test out the new pack-rafts, but I couldn't find any close by rivers that had good flows (I am not really tuned in to these things though, so maybe I missed something good). So we went with plan B - the Mt Humphreys Triathlon. This was entirely made up and involved biking from 7,000 feet in Flagstaff up to 9,500 feet at the ski area (about 14 miles) and then skinning up on skis as far as we could go (we really hoped there was enough snow left). Then on to the summit of Mt Humphreys at 12,637 ft. The reverse would be gravity assisted and hopefully a lot quicker and easier.

Sam preps his bike in the dark

We started at 6 am and made it up to the ski area in about 2.5 hours. Most of the snow was gone, but we only had to walk a few hundred yards to get onto a good patch. From there on up we had enough to skin up above the top of the lift (~11,500ft). The snow was pretty icy, and rather dirty in places. We hoped it would be a bit softer for the descent.

Sam skinning up

Once we stashed the ski gear it was a pain to traverse over to Humphreys but we did manage to tag another peak along the way. By the time we neared the summit the wind was really blowing. I don't know how hard, but I was unable to walk in a straight line at times and without ski poles I think we would have had to crawl. I am guessing somewhere around 60 mph for the gusts, maybe 70? When I turned into the wind it felt like sticking my head out of a car window on the freeway. We were very glad to have ski goggles on. Sam was hurting from the altitude (having recently been in North Dakota), but I was ok this trip. On the descent it started snowing/sleeting/mini-graupel. This was blowing up at us as we were near the ridge line. Once again we were glad for the goggles.

It was cold and windy, and Sam was feeling the altitude

Sam does a handstand in strong winds

We didn't have any fat pills, so we had to settle for beef and cheese sticks

Unfortunately things had cooled off and the snow was still pretty icy for the descent and for some reason my legs were really tired. Some of it was fun, but some was more of a chore threading my way between the rocks, trees, and grass. We had to dodge through the woods at one point which was a little exciting. Luckily it wasn't very steep there. The bike ride down from the ski area went quickly, although Sam went a lot slower the way his skis were strapped on his pack like an air-brake. We actually had a tail-wind for most of the rest of the way back to Flagstaff.

The total time was around 11.5 hours. We weren't hurrying at all on the transitions though.

Once again I'll try to post a more complete trip report soon, plus I think we might have enough video footage for a mini video.

Here is a link to the trip report page: http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/mthumptri2011.html


here is the video...

youtube Video of trip up Mount Humphreys, Arizona

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAgkd9K6Ii4