Last Stupid Ski Tour of 2010

Jeff, Beth, Faerthen, Gregor, and Erica are off to the Alps at this very moment, gutting our stupid milieu for the season given the indecent length of their stay. But one last tour was had on Saturday (3/6/2010), from Steven's Peak to Waterhouse, involving a short car shuttle. This tour included two snowboarders, Rob and the stupid ski tour virgin Dave, and everyone would have felt bad for them if Rob hadn't picked the itinerary. Turns out there are several miles of rolling terrain between Stevens and Waterhouse, a temple of painful scooch. And it was Dave's first time on a splitboard too. But they both did an amazing job with the 38 transitions in route, and overall it was an excellent day. Unique, dramatic terrain, good snow and good turns. If we had only hit those microslot couloirs that looked like cliffs from above...

Participants on this tour were Faerthen, Jeff, Beth, Gregor, Rob, Dave, and Chris. Best of luck to the Euro travelers.

Best view of avalanches.

Off to Chamonix next week...probably won't be doing this. I wonder what happens if you trigger a slide on a climber below?:
Speed Riding - Antoine Montant - Can't Stop

Stupid ski Tour? That's Jive Talk!

Sagehen 2010

Sagehen Ski Weekend.

Does ski weekend count as a Stupid Ski Tour?

There are certainly a lot of stupid elements: planes, trains & automobiles shuttles; big groups in the backcountry; peak ascents; lots of laps [almost mogulled Carpenter this year!]; steep skin tracks; big avalanches & now a redneck bonfire.

2010 was great snow, sunshine, & no problems other than the wheels falling off the 'cat on Monday :)

Everyone keeps asking about elevations, so I ran some Topo lines:



UP...
- The cat saves us +1100' & 4-miles of walking.
- The first climb from the cat parking to Carpenter ridge is +1100' & 1.4-miles.
- The continuation up to Carpenter Peak is an additional +400' & .75-mile.
- The climb out of Independence from the usual spot back to Carpenter Ridge is +1300' & 1-mile.

DOWN...
- The ski descent of Carpenter Peak to where we usually start the hike is about 1600'.
- The descent of the Lake shots is about -1300' to where we usually hike.
- The ski out the road from the cat staging area is -750' & 1.5-miles to the pick-up.
- The cat ride [or skiing] from the pick-up point back to the station is -350' & 2.5-miles.

WEEKEND CLIMBING TOTALS [STN TO STN]...
- Lake shot: roughly +2500' & 6.25-miles.
- Carpenter Peak, 1-lap: roughly +3000' & 7-miles.
- Carpenter Peak, 2-laps: roughly +4750' & 9-miles.
- Carpenter Peak, 3-laps: roughly +6200' & 11-miles.



- Three day total [least & most]: +8500-13,450' & 20.25-26.25 miles.

Who?:

Jeff, Faerthen, Beth, Dr. Jim, Sue, Shaggy, Gayle, Susie, Rob, Anne, Paul, Buttercup, Gregor, Erica, the Hornimores, Chris & Susan, Kim, Nate, who did I forget?

Gear recommendation: extra legs.

Here are some pics and info from past years:

FF's 2009 avalanche report.
Virginia's 2005 avalanche report.

2009 photos:

Shaggy loads up on stimulants.

Getting sketchy on Carpenter Ridge.

Checking cornice sensitivity on a small
test slope.

We remotely triggered a BIG slide that wrapped the north side
of Carpenter Peak. Fortunately, no one was in the way,
but everyone learned a few things about big groups in the
backcountry that day.

Waiting for the cat at the end of the day.

Jeff clears the road.

Natural activity the next day.

Add me to the list.

At Beth's party, a bunch of people asked me to add them to the list, but I'm not sure I remember everyone. So, in the future, use the comments section of this post to add yourself...I'll put a link in the sidebar.

This will get you on our list for e-mails, but here's how to get automatic notices when this blog is updated.

POV camera in avalanche.

Some of you asked for this video link:


Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.

And here are the ones everybody keeps quoting...

"All the Cool Kids are Paramarking":

"The Truth About Powder Skis":

"Cross-country Snowboarding":

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Menage-a -Trois tour

Sunday, January 31, 2010: Today, Shaggie called the ball. We skied a traverse through Desolation Wilderness from Bayview to Dick's Peak, then Janie's Peak, then Maggie's Peak & out the desperate up-track back to the parking pull out.

The tour covered around 10.5 miles over 5K-feet of elevation gain & loss. So it was burly, but not vomitous. We even kicked off a couple little shallow wind slabs on Dick's.

We learned a lot: that this is actually a great tour, for instance. Some of us even learned we'd been wearing drop seat pants for 13 years without realizing it. And that what happens on a stupid ski tour STAYS on a stupid ski tour :)

Skiers: Shaggie, Beth, Chris, Buttercup, Castle-Bloom, Jeff, Faerthen, Gregor, Erica & Anne.

Affirmative-action token Snowboarder: Rob.

Chris' photos.

Untitled from Rob Flesher on Vimeo.

Saturday January 23, 2010 tour.

Beth suggested the Floriston tour would be good for this weekend. Jeff & I were in Reno today, & it looks like we could sneak out to the freeway if there was about a foot more snow.

So if Reno gets 12" or more tonight & tomorrow, it could be doable this weekend.

Get automatic notices when someone posts.

If you remember to keep checking your favorite blogs [like this one!] for updates, that's great. But I never do. You can use a news aggregator like Google Reader to keep your RSS feeds together & handy, but you have to remember to check that, too.

Blogtrottr is a service that will e-mail you whenever someone posts to this blog. Just put in our URL & your e-mail address.

New blog.

Hey all!

On our last tour a couple folks thought it would be a good idea to put together a "Stupid Ski Tour" blog for working out our tours & archiving maps & photos.

Here it is. I posted all our previous tours that I have photos or maps for back to 2005, so there are some missing. I also posted the tour ideas I am aware are being mulled over. Go ahead & edit the posts to add links to any photos, maps or Topo files you may have on-line. Blog your other tour schemes & any tours I missed, too.

We can all post & comment, so fire away. Use the tags so we can sort by keyword later [makes it easier to find things]. Let me know if you want anything changed.

FF

New tour suggestions.

During an Imp meltdown at Sagehen the other day, Sue, Chris, Jeff & I poured over the map to come up with some new schemes. Here are some ideas we came up with, along with some that I dug up from past discussions [Word doc]:

1. Some sort of a Luther Pass to Freel Peak to Carson descent as we discussed in the past. A truly ludicrous shuttle, but possibly the biggest descent in these parts, & you can get Pho on the way home :)

* Luther Pass on 89, across Freel, Job's Sister, and Jobs, and finishing with that OUTstanding 5000'+ descent off of Job's down to Minden.

2. A spring jaunt from Incline Peak to King's Beach. Lots of sunny exposures on this one, & a good bit of elevation loss. Probably not stupid at all.

3. Sue finally located the finger chutes over by Hourglass. So, the tour we discussed with Colpo a couple years back is back on the burner:

* Mt. Rose Summit. Start at the summit parking or just down hill at the Hourglass pull-out. Follow that ridge up to the top of Tamarack, get about 800' of turns in, and then follow the spine up to the top of 1) Mt. Houghton, to ski Bronco Chutes (approx. 2000') followed by a long ski out to Floriston; or 2) Relay Peak, from which you can drop into Relay Bowl (approx. 1000'), quickly climb westward onto the nearby ridgeline, where you'll find a row of spicy 600' N-facing shots. From there, you could wind down along Gray's Creek toward that cabin near Hirschdale (and the final STEEP, and very enticing looking 1000'+ line immediately up the drainage from the cabin (off of Martis Peak, perhaps?).

4. Shaggy's Menage-a-Trois tour out to Dick's Peak & the two Maggies [or something like that]. He also has a monster version with a traverse of Dick's, Jack's and other stuff.

5. Here are some other traverses previously discussed with Colpo that are rather enormous, but interesting maybe for when we're toughened up in the spring and the days are longer:

* Length-wise traverse of the northern Carson Range, climbing up from Incline, going over Rose proper, and then traversing the full length of the ridge. It's possible right now to ski all the way down to Patagonia. Not something I would want to do laps on, but a cool ending to a nice long (approx. 26 miles) traverse.
* Carson Pass to Tahoe. Cross at Luther Pass, then ascend to either Freel or Trimmer.

6. We'd also like to revisit a couple of our past tours under better snow conditions, but especially Donner-Sagehen via Red Mountain. Or maybe we could do this as either a Gayle's or Chris' house to Sagehen tour?

7. I'd like to try Carson to Luther via public transit this time [and everyone else wants to be sure we do it south to north]. We'll have to bribe the bus driver to let us out at Carson pass, since they aren't supposed to do that. Maybe go prepared to tour around Kirkwood if Plan-A doesn't work out?

8. I've attached some maps & profiles Sue & Beth did for other options around Desolation.

How do you know if your ski tour is stupid?

Most people go backcountry skiing to get good turns. They take the easiest way up familiar slopes, then ski the best snow sections back down to the car...no energy wasted.

So, what if you've never been there before, you just drew a likely-looking line on the map, then tromped out to see if it really goes? How about if you know the snow is awful & you go out anyway?

Or worse, what if you deliberately ignore the good snow in order to complete an interesting traverse or peak ascent? And if you end up miles away from where you started with a big, complicated shuttle to do?

What if we have to carry [& use] ice ax & crampons, then thrash down through alder, skin up manzanita & Beth has to climb a tree?

Well, that would be stupid, wouldn't it? :)

Deep Creek Peak(s).

January 2010: We originally planned to loop up Deep Creek, around Tinker's Knob, then out Pole Creek. But then Susie Sutphin got involved & predictably introduced a LOT more actual skiing to the equation :) If this tour is stupid, it's not for the lack of turns. We went up Deep Creek to Deep Creek Peak [we love saying that!], skied down then up Billy's Peak, skied down then up Great Wall of China for one last ski, then out. Who?: Jeff, Faerthen, Beth, Sue, Susie, Shaggy, Ted