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After battling up the re-frozen south facing hillside, we gained the ridge and were greeted with wind, snow, and overcast skies. I thought this was California!

Climbing the ridge:


Jimw with Mt Morrison in the background:



After a quick lunch the clouds began to break up and the winds died down. We even had a few moments of sunshine for the rocky walk to the summit.

Brian:


Tex skinning above Mammoth Mountain:


Heading towards the summit:


Jimw climbing the ridge:


Climbing the ridge:


Preparing for the descent:



Jim drops in and runs over the closest rock he can find, ripping out a chunk of edge, sidewall, and core. One more of those Burton dinosaurs goes to splitboard heaven. But it doesn't seem to affect his riding. So we carry on...

Jimw:


Tex:


Looking down the Pinner Couloir:


Brian:



About halfway down we ran into a section that wasn't quite filled in with snow. It was a narrow strip of ice about 100 feet long, with a handful of rocks poking through. A little unexpected, to say the least.
On one side there was enough soft snow to kick steps, and climb down over the rocks. Thankfully the chute isn't very steep at that point, and we all made it through safely.

Tex after successfully negotiating the unexpected downclimb:


Looking up at Mt Morrison:



Mt Morrison:

Good stuff bcd!

Love that helmet too tex!

Sorry to hear about the board jim!

Eastside goodies! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!
Read about this this morning on Sue Burack's site.

Is that a goiter growing out of that dude's head?

Super nice! Such amazing mountains and lines! Thanks for the once again killer photos.

Can I just say, BCD is such a sandbagger. I know this was just a typical day trip for him, but for me that was a pretty epic day, complete with some sphincter-tightening gripped sections. But for those of us that came a long way to get the goods, the story is longer, so let me back up a bit.

Intro

Two weekends ago, California finally got dumped on. It was an epic storm. So epic that I decided I better take a couple days off so I could have a long weekend to sample the goods. The usual Tahoe spots were on the list. Then Tex and SanFrantastico mentioned maybe heading out to the eastside, and at that point I started to... well, I got excited. So the plan formed - Thursday at Kirkwood, Friday Tahoe bc, Sat/Sun eastside. Ah, but where to go on the eastside? Well, the Dana Plateau is always high on my list, so that was good for one of the days. Then I consulted BCD's website for some inspiration (if you haven't been there yet, go check it out, NOW!), and found this:



This is the Pinner couloir, on Laurel Mountain, just south of Mammoth. It's a beautiful 3000 ft east-facing shot that is hidden from view from most angles, since it is tucked behind a huge cliff on the north side of Laurel. After cleaning up various liquid secretions, I PM'd BCD and asked what he thought the conditions would be like in the Pinner. He said he though it would be filled in for sure - so the plan was ON!

Thursday

It freaking rained in Tahoe! All the way to the top of Kirkwood. Major suckage. Spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what I had done to piss off the snow gods so much.

Friday

I hooked up with a few Tahoe locals for a dawn patrol run down Waterhouse. I left the split at home and just used the Verts. Good thing, the skin track was a frozen, icy mess. The turns were actually OK, it seemed like the rain hadn't gotten the area too bad. Turns on the lower half made this interesting "ripping nylon" sound. "Rippable crust" as breadbox might say.

The original plan for the day was to meet up with SF and powderjunkie and hit up Roundtop. But it actually didn't look like the coverage was that good in the Crescent couloir - the area looked pretty wind-hammered. And with the inevitable rain crust, it didn't sound like that much fun. So I headed back to Kirkwood. I took one run off the backside and sampled some off-piste terrain, and the rain crust was so bad it was funny. It was about an inch or two thick and super hard, so most of the time it felt like riding on ice, but then every once in a while you would break through and immediately sink into deep powder. Super fun.

So I met up with SF and we just farted around on the groomers. SF had never ridden in a terrain park before, so we played around in the beginner park. Pretty soon he was jibbing the rail better than the 10 year olds that he kept pushing out of the way. In this shot, we see not only his excellent 50-50 steeze, but also his keen fashion sense, what with the symmetric snow treatment to both cheeks and crack.



Anyway, it was fun playing around in the park, but we came out here hoping to get some epic backcountry pow. Obviously it wasn't going to happen in Tahoe. But what about the eastside? If conditions were the same there, it wasn't going to be worth the drive. But what if it hadn't rained down there?

Tex had gone out with Dutch Marc to Basin Mountain near Bishop, and reported decent snow. BCD confirmed that it had rained slightly in Mammoth, but he thought that conditions might still be decent in some areas. I think his exact words were along the lines of, "we'll probably run into a little bit of everything, but I don't think there will be any death ice or anything." Hmm. We decided to chance it. We drove down to Lee Vining and crashed out.

Saturday

We got up early and headed out to Convict Lake, where we met up with Tex, Dutch Marc, BCD, and his buddy Brian. I was pretty excited to be checking out the Pinner, and to be going on a trip with BCD, whose splitboard exploits I have admired for a while now. SF and Dutch Marc opted for a mellower tour to Old Man's bowl, so we parted ways and started traversing the lake. At the top left is Larel Mountain. You can see the famous Mendenhall couloir twisting down from the summit. It needs a bit more snow...



Near the end of the lake, we started climbing a chute up towards the ridge. The snow at this point was completely frozen crust.



The angle was pretty steep, and everyone was having problems slipping. Well, except for BCD, but since he's not human he doesn't count. I was OK because I had my super-easy-to-use Burton crampons (hint, hint, Will... ). Brian didn't have ski crampons, and was slipping. Tex had ski crampons but somehow only had one long Voile pin. I gave Brian my Verts, which I had brought "just in case", and they saved the day once again.



As we got higher, the snow varied from boilerplate to crusty mank, and it was slow going. I swear I saw BCD slip once or twice. That made me feel better. At least the views were good though. Looking across at Mt. Morrison and the infamous "Death couloir" to looker's right of the summit:



Finally we reached a saddle. It had taken us about 2 hours to climb around 1k. I was starting to wonder if this was such a good idea. But the views were rejuvinating. Here's Tex at the saddle. Directly behind him is Convict Canyon, with Red Slate and its sweet diagonal couloir at the head of the canyon.



Tex was testing out his new helmetcam setup. It's an HD camcorder mounted to a full-face mountain bike helmet with a custom made bracket. We were teasing him about looking like an astronaut, with his astro-cam. I can't believe he wore that thing the whole time. Bet he got some good footage though...

At this point we started contouring around the top of some sweet north-facing bowls (I think these are known locally as the "batch plant bowls"), and suddenly found ourselves in... powder?? Yes! It really was powder! This gave us some hope that this might actually be worth it after all, and that we might find some decent snow in the couloir. We pressed onward.







This looks like a good place to break for lunch:



At this point some weather had moved in. The winds had picked up, and it was snowing lightly. The last thing I wanted to do was get up to the summit in a whiteout. But we saw windows of sunlight breaking through in a few places, so we thought that the weather window might open up soon, and decided to press on. After a somewhat sketchy icy traverse above what appeared to be a cliff band, we finally approached the wind-hammered summit ridge.



Soon the snow disappeared into a talus field, and it was time to strap the boards on the pack. BCD had plenty of opportunities to snap pictures while waiting for our slow asses.



Then, the weather started to break up, and we got a few glimpses of sunlight. Oddly enough, at the same time, Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" started blaring through hidden underground speakers.



On the summit ridge, with the skies clearing up, the views really got spectacular. Looking to the east, there's an interesting unnamed mountain the BCD referred to as "flattop mountain". Some sweet chutes dropping off there - reminds me a little of the Dana plateau. Behind that, the V notch marking the top of the Parachute couloir is visible.



Looking back down to Convict Lake.



Tex on the ridge, with the Mammoth airport and White mountains in the background.



Near the summit looking towards Mt. Morrison. The saddle at the top left-center of the pic is the top of Old Man's bowl, and SF and Dutch Marc were probably there around the same time. The lower part of the pic is the wide apron entrance of the Mendenhall couloir. Looks pretty doable here, but BCD assured us that it was sketchy down lower. If BCD says it's sketchy, be very afraid.



Once at the summit proper, the views Did Not Suck (tm).





Not even the astro-cam could spoil this view. Check out Red Slate.



Here's the top of Bloody Mtn:



After taking in the summit views, we hiked south toward the top of Pinner. There's Red Slate again...



BCD and Brian check out the entrance to Pinner. Hey, isn't that Red Slate in the upper right? Hmm, where to go next time...



And finally, there it was. The top of the Pinner.



We got our gear ready, and hung out for a bit hoping that the sun would break through, which it finally did around 2 PM. BCD tossed a rock into the chute, and it immediately sank and disappeared. Good sign! We discussed the game plan, then BCD dropped in.



It looked like sweet consolidated pow! Amazing! It had all been worth it. I dropped in, and yep, the snow was great. I made a couple turns, got excited, opened it up a bit, then BAM!! What looked like a tiny innocent rock turned out to be the tip of a huge rock fin sticking through the snow surface. On impact I did a nice front flip (I meant to do that). I gathered myself up, and everything seemed OK, so I kept going and headed further down the chute. The turns were amazing, and the chute itself was beautiful. It twisted and turned next to huge, colorful rock walls, and you could never see around the next corner.

After a few more turns I pulled over at a safe spot to wait for the guys, looked down, and saw that things were not, in fact, OK:



SH*T!!! Uh, don't think that one's gonna be fixable. But so far the damage didn't seem to affect the ride, so I just hoped it would last for the ride out, and tried not to think about it. Meanwhile, everyone was enjoying the great snow in this sweet chute.

Brian:



BCD:



Astroman gets some astro-cam footage:



It just kept going and going, getting tighter at each turn.



And then, we got to the crux.



This was the narrowest section, and it had sluffed out at some point earlier, leaving mostly icy snow and rocks. BCD and Tex were able to get partway down it before resorting to downclimbing. By the time Brian and I got there, the upper section was also scraped clean, so we had to downclimb two sections. It ended up being pretty sketchy since we weren't really prepared for it. Brian didn't have crampons or an axe, and his pack couldn't carry a board vertically. Since the climbable section was right next to the wall, this meant that his board would be getting in the way on the pack. I ended up giving Brian my Whippets, and I put on the Verts and sort of used his board as a self-belay, with my board on my pack. It was awkward, to say the least.





Finally, we made it to the "safe" section. Nope, not steep here at all! I remined BCD about his "no death ice" prediction, and he clarified that what he meant to say was "not much death ice"...



Once past that though, things opened up again, and we still had over 1k of goodness left!

Tex:



BCD:



Finally the chute widened, and the apron came into view. And with it, the good snow gave way to crust again.



At this point, Brian and BCD hightailed it out of there, since we knew we were OK, and Brian had to be at work at 5 PM (and it was now 4 PM). None of us thought the trip would be anywhere near that long, but I guess you never know.

Tex and I took our time, and took the scenic route out.





The scenic route included lots of opportunities for getting stuck in the crust.



Tex finally removed the astro-helmet. Dude! Put it back on! Please!



Tex demonstrates his gangbanger pants steeze.



After fighting with the crusty exit long enough, the sun finally began to go down, and we were treated to some classic eastside sunset views.







It was an epic adventure that I won't soon forget. Big thanks to BCD for showing us around!

And it was a good way for the board to go to splitboard heaven. I'd have to say it was worth it.

Intermission

We headed into Mammoth that evening to see if I could rent a splitboard at Mammoth Mountaineering. The town was packed. It was amazing that we were just 15 minutes away and didn't see anyone the whole time.

Mammoth Mountaineering did have 3 Mojo's to rent. I picked up the 66, and SF decided to try the 61. We headed back to the hotel in Lee Vining to set them up.

One more look at the damage:





Setting up the Mojo. Now just how do these Voile puck thingies work anyway??



Sunday

Initially I had wanted to head up to Dana Plateau on Sunday, but we were all way too beat for that. Plus I didn't think it would be the best place for a first run on a new board with new bindings. But we did stop by for a look.



Leaving that behind was one of the hardest things I had to do all weekend...

We decided to head back down to the batch plant bowls, since we knew from our approach yesterday that they held good snow. We had some good views on the way.

Mt Wood, with Kidney couloir visible about 1/4 of the way in from the right of the pic:



Bloody:



We decided to approach the bowls from the Convict Lake Resort area, thinking we could easily contour around from there. As it turns out, it probably would have been faster to start right at the road by the "batch plant" and skin out a couple flat miles directly to the base of the chute we wanted. Instead, we ended up crossing a bunch of ridges and not getting to our intended chute.

Lost already, shortly after an 11 AM alpine start:



It was really warm that day, so our main goal was to get out of the sun. The snow was still holding up pretty well in the protected areas.



At this point, we decided we had traversed enough ridges.



Where we wanted to get to (by our skin track from the day before):



The run down was actually surprisingly decent. SF had a blast on the Mojo, so much so that he had to buy one!



Tex had to get on the road early, so after a quick 3-hour tour we were back at the cars. SF remembered that he had a cream-filled donut left over from breakfast, and got the best face-shot of the day.



On the way back, Tex showed us the way to his favorite hot spring. It was the perfect way to wrap up the trip. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any naked hippie chicks in this particular hole.



I love the eastern Sierra!

Thanks for a great weekend! I enjoyed meeting East Side hero BCD along with Brian and it was fun meeting up with TEX, Dutch Marc and of course JimW.



First, in my defense, there was only 4 1/2 oz of soft snow on all of kirkwood that day. I felt it was a smart decision to affix it all to my ass. I only wish I had put some on my shins because I screwed up bad trying to ride what the kids call a "half and half" or "fifty percent and another fifty percent' on a round rail. Ouch.

Here's "JibW' pulling a method air in the kiddie park off of chair 7. He was scything through 12-year-olds like so many blades of grass.




Sunrise over McGee.


While those guys were in the Pinner, Dutch Marc and I climbed Old Man's Bowl on Little Morrison and dug a snow pit.










The snow was stable, but the riding was tough. Patches of hard and breakable crust with flat light to keep us guessing. The sun poked out for the last few hundred feet and stayed out for the rest of the day. Oh well.




Some scenic shots...




This is what we were aiming for on Sunday...


This is what we got... still fun, though. Maybe my funnest riding this season.


These mountains are amazing. Some of biggest mountains in the contenintal US are tucked away right here, away from the crowds. If you can make it to the West Coast Split Party, you will dig it.

Super cool guys. The Pinner looks pretty intimidating. Well done.

Hindsight is a bitch. We should have come to the eastside.

Sick guys! Thanks for calling. D*cks. j/k

great shots. i really like the shots looking across at morrison. glad you all got this one done. sounds like you all had a sweet day.

jimw that sucks about your board, thrashed huh?

new name for tex with helemt cam R2Dtex2....so when's that footage coming out?

oh wow, Glen Plake!!!!.....oh wait...its just TEX

I will call it "The Goiter Cam" from now on. Im still laughing at that one.

Sweet shots by all and even a jimw TR thrown in.

ps. VIDDY...VIDDY...VIDDY....