Shaking the Snowglobe

For the past few weeks when people have asked what my road trip plan is, I’ve responded saying I’m swinging through the west, down to Taos, out to Colorado, and then back through the Eastern Sierra for a little backcountry skiing. As Nick and I scoped out the backcountry options here we found ourselves a little overwhelmed. It’s not like I’m Tahoe where there’s dozens of people running up Rubicon every day and the known, safe routes are well documented. Wanting to push ourselves a bit, we researched some of the cooler looking nearby lines to Bishop found in the Eastern Sierra guidebook: North Couloir and Zebra Couloir off Mt. Emerson. But staring at these peaks from a distance with their swirling cloud top peaks, and reading into reactions from a friend with lots of experience in this terrain, it became clear that we didn’t have the exposed backcountry experience to make safe calls on the routes we envisioned. So we decided to check out renting a guide, one day before (aka yesterday).

In typical fashion things did work out quite well. We were grabbing morning coffees at Black Sheep and I saw on google maps a “Sierra Mountain Center”, offering guided backcountry tours, a couple blocks away. I bopped right on over and asked, with low confidence, whether they’d be able to help Nick and I organize a tour for the following morning. “Oh I think Mike should be around, let me text him,” responded the friendly organizer. Thirty seconds later we were confirmed and booked for a to be determined excursion the following morning, snuggly fit between an early wake up and Nick’s 2:30 pm meeting. I looked around the room for a “that was easy,” button!

We woke up excited, and drove over to Mammoth Lakes to meet up with Mike , scored by a random touring playlist found on Spotify. Mike seemed excited, and instantly gave off the exact energy you’d hope for in a guide. Offering small bits of advice and guidance, building rapport as both an expert and a cool person, and shaping the day to help me and Nick achieve our goals. And our goals were to come away with a bit more experience making observations about the snow pack along the tour, forging our own path to make safe and fun choices, and navigating steeper, more exposed terrain. Mike’s plan was to bring us up a treeline route, which would take a couple miles of skinning, and then depending on how that went we’d traverse across the basin to another climb up the Mammoth Crest, which would present some steeper learning opportunities.

Up we went, delayering as the flat cat track turned into a slight incline. Mike was awesome, pointing out cool features on nearby faces. “That’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ there”, pointing to a natural rock tunnel that looked almost gimmicky to ski through. “People love to finish out there since it brings you back to this track.” Touring is ultimately 90% walking up, so we had lots of time to pepper Mike with questions. “How do you know when and where snow might be drifting?”, “How can you predict if ice might tumble down a couloir while you boot pack under it?”, “What does wind scoured snow texture look like?”. Mike turned every question into a cool learning moment, often deviating from his intended skin path to show us a roll over or steep chute and how he might evaluate its safety/fun factor.

Nick and I cruised through the tree run, having an absolute blast in the powder stash that Mike delivered. Yes we were there to learn, but many people pay a guide simply to show them where no body else knows to go, even if that’s just a half mile out of the path more traveled. After hearing moans and groans from some Utah natives at the trail head, (“You think there’s good snow up there?”, they said skeptically), turning through soft humming powder was a surprise and delight. Mike liked what he saw, pushing us a bit on a steeper mini chute, and decided we were a safe bet to bring up to the Mammoth Crest. We transitioned once again back to skins and walk mode, and headed up.

On top of the beautiful, granite ridge Mike showed us Plans A, B, and C. “Generally you want a B and C that don’t actually suck! Or else you won’t want to ski them and might make bad choices.” Plan A was an open, steel bowl with a few “S” tracks running down it from some earlier attendees. Plan B was an interesting looking chute, which despite being North Easterly and leeward (where the wind should be depositing) facing according to the forecast, looked slightly wind scoured – ripples, textured snow, and hard packed drop ins. Apparently despite the expected wind forecast,the channel created between Mammoth Peak and the Crest we were on creates a funnel for wind, slightly altering its direction. Plan C was the Hollywood Chute – true to its name it was a steep and badass looking run but had the potential for unsafe conditions or bad snow. Standing above it, it did look like what Nick and I were hoping for. We went through an evaluation and despite the low expectations we were told to maintain (preventing potential disappointment), the conditions looked pretty good. Maybe not as good of skiing as Plan A, but this kind of run was why we hired a guide!

Down we went, one by one, trying our best Doug Coombs jump turn and smile impressions. Mike stood at the bottom photographing our runs, and providing high fives congratulating us on a successful Hollywood effort. We gleefully skied down the glades below the chute, following Mikes lines as he threw a couple small jumps and came down a few steeper roll overs, “welcome to forty degrees,” he fist bumped us in congratulations after one of the steeper sections.

Two transitions later, we were back at the car with enough time to make it to the coffee shop for Nick’s call. Mike offered us a couple of IPAs,m and we cheersed to our idyllic tour. “I think we nailed it,” Mike declared. Nick and I were super grateful for the day, we learned a ton and skied some of the most fun lines of the trip without seeing another soul up in the basin on this blue bird day. This was a perfect wrap up to my month of skiing with pals. Now, the plan is a relaxing evening of light climbing, hot springs, and cooking.

Tomorrow I’ll head back to SF in the early morning, trying to avoid any of the MASSIVE 4-10 foot storm rolling in this weekend that might trap me in the Sierras. It’s almost poetic that as my trip wraps up, a possible record breaking snow fall is heading for Tahoe that I won’t be able to enjoy. I tried my best to pack enough fun and snow in this trip to more than satisfy myself, but of course I still feel the FOMO, even knowing that I’ll probably get to enjoy remnants of the storm when I come back from New York. I’m definitely ready to work and get back to a normal city routine, but as Doug Coombs said in his high school yearbook, “There is no such thing as too much SNOW!”.