Spring Break in the Sierras-
Becky and I have done a couple longish backpacking trips in
the Sierras, the John Muir Trail and the northern half of the Sierra High
Route, but we’d never seen the range in the winter. This seemed like it this
was the year to get down to California and finally do some touring, but her
nursing school schedule had us limited to only a handful of days in late March.
Decided four days prior to spring break that a short time in the sun in the
Sierras would still be worth it, so we scrounged what info we could and
barreled down there.
I think we basically spent four days skinning around mouths
agape staring at the lifetime of beautiful ski runs to be had in every
direction. The Dan Mingori & Nate Greenberg Backcountry Skiing Californias
Eastern Sierra 2nd Edition is a fantastic guidebook. I’d also recommend getting
the supplemental app (you can buy it or rent it), being new to the area, it was
cool to have the routes accessible on our phone while out touring.
Road access is pretty good right now, but it’ll get better.
In late April a lot more roads are plowed out so anglers can start fishing at
all the high lakes. Buttermilk Rd suffered some damage this winter, you may
need a 4x4 for that one, but it seems like a lot of the other roads are paved
the whole way. Rock Creek is the only
snowpark in the Mammoth/Bishop vicinity, and supposedly you can buy a day pass
at the snowpark, but we couldn’t find the pay station maybe its there, maybe it
would be better to get a pass at the ranger station.
Watch the overnight low temps- seems like corn o clock can
be as early as 9am some days. Maybe wind is less of an issue later in the spring,
but wow did we have a windy day and got totally shut down on finding soft snow
in the alpine on one of our tours.
We didn’t check out anything north of Mammoth- given our
short amount of time, we only managed to do a tour around Convict Lake/Mini
Morrison, then Bishop Bowl near North Lake, Mt.Alice out of Big Pine, and
McGee, just south of Mammoth. The locals we met on McGee said some seasons it
never gets enough snow to be skiable, but this year it was fat.
Wish we would’ve had a few weeks to spend down there- skiing
wide open terrain into warm sagebrush valleys is a trip.
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