[drop'n'in]

Even though the weather forecast was questionable, my wife and I decided to head for a weekend outing to Sequoia Natl Park. We left the cental coast Friday in the middle of a storm, thinking that we would be skiing in a snowstorm. When you only have a few weekends to work with, you have to take what you can get, and we figured at least there would be fresh powder. We loaded up all of our warmest clothes, goggles, etc. You name it, we threw it in the truck. As we drove across the valley, the clouds began to dissipate. We camped in the truck at the Lodgepole campground. By the time we turned in for the night, the skies were clear and ablaze with stars.

Saturday morning dawned clear and cold, 11* at the campground. Thank goodness for heated restrooms! We hit the trail shortly after 9, and it had warmed up to almost 20*. A group of snowshoers had gone in the day before, so we didn't have to break trail for the first few miles and 2,000' of climbing.



Donette following the trail to the top of "The Hump".



The skies were crystal clear at the Hump (9,600'), and there was only an intermittent breeze. After a quick lunch, we continued our climbing.



From here on out, we were on our own and had to break trail. There was a couple of feet of day old powder to work our way through.



We took turns breaking trail to the top of a slope known as The Soccer Field, between Heather Lake and Emerald Lake.



We topped out at 1:30 at about 10,500', after fours hours of climbing. Acres of untracked snow await our descent.



There is beautiful terrain in all directions. This is one of the clearest days I have ever seen, and the views in all directions were superb.


And finally, the payoff. The snow was sweet- not perfect light powder, but still lots of fun.



The occasional light crust was no match for our fat skis.



The descent is over all too quickly, and then it's back to the top for another run. This time we have a nice track to follow, and it takes much less time and effort. We topped out at 3:30, and with sunset shortly after 5 and the car several miles away, it's time for the last run.



The snowpack was very stable, so we took the opportunity to ski a steep chute that drops into Heather Lake. I have been eyeing this line for years, but the conditions were never quite right. Today, it was perfect. My lovely wife carves it up...



And heads on down to the lake.



Looking back at our tracks, but the camera angle belies how steep the slopes actually are. With the shadows lengthening, it was time to put on climbing skins for the short uphill section to the Hump, and then 2 miles of skiing the trees back to the truck. We got back right at sunset - perfect timing, no wasted daylight

We went to bed with dreams of following our freshly laid skin track back to the top, and skiing the steep chute that drops from the top of the Soccer Field down to Emerald Lake. Mother Nature had other plans, however, and shortly after we crawled into the truck for the night it began to rain. And it continued to rain all night. The camping area was a slushy mess Sunday morning, and the temperature was 20* warmer than it was Saturday. While there was undoubtedly some nice fresh snow at the upper elevations, we could also see that there were pretty horrendous winds streaming the snow off of the exposed ridgelines. The combination of wet, slushy snow on the approach and bitter winds up high stripped our enthusiasm away, and we opted for an early return home.

[jfb]

Nice work! It's been too long since I had a day like that......
_________________
"It's turns! 'Course it's worth the hike" -MrP

[SanFrantastico]

Mystery solved!! A group of splitters was staying at the Pear Lake Hut last weekend and we saw your tracks on the soccer field from our little perch on the N side of the Kaweah Marble Fork Drainage. We were speculating on whether we'd be meeting at the hut later. Nice lines! I'll post a picture taken from afar if I can find a good one.

We did find stability issues up there, observing about 1/2 dozen whumps on N. aspects. Good choice bailing Sunday. The winds came up strong overnight and the windloading up there Sunday morning was pretty insane.

[drop'n'in]

Hey San Frantastico,
We saw your tracks, too. You made your second run just as we finished lunch and started our first. Looked like some of you went back up for thirds - you guys covered a lot of ground. Thanks for the positive reinforcement about bailing. It's good to know the decision was supported by lousy conditions and not just tired legs

Edit: Here's a shot cropped from the background of one of our photos that shows your lines, albeit barely.

[SanFrantastico]

Awesome - great shot of our lines! We were trying to access that hanging snowfield at the top of the tracks but we got barred by blue ice in the choke. It was an unexpectedly gorgeous day with amazing views in every direction. Great payoff for a long slog in.

[SanFrantastico]

Well I didn't find any with visible tracks, but here's a shot of the storm coming in over the soccer field after you skied it Saturday.


By Sunday morning there were gigantic wind slabs everywhere above treeline.


Crunch crunch crunch. You really missed it on Sunday.

[patroller420]

Well .....thats who did that. As SanFrantastico stated we thought we would be seeing you guys at the Hut.

Nice lines. This was my first tyrip to the West side and I was truly impressed. I will be back.

BTW when you come out of lodgepole what would you say the distance is to the soccer field?

On our last run all the way down to the drainage in the pic you took we found a lot of unstable pockets down along the creek.

Whump Whump Whump

[heyyou]

Very cool. The ulitimate in glade skiing.

Thank you.

[seki]

Very nice!

[drop'n'in]

SF - Thanks for the additional photos. It was pretty cool seeing that storm approach all afternoon. It was also nice getting out of there just in time. Your pics make me really glad we just went home early.

Patroller - I'm not exactly sure of the distances, but I think it is about 2.5 miles from the Wolverton trailhead to the top of the Hump, and maybe another 1 to 1.5 miles from there to the top of the soccer field. I tend to think of it more in terms of time, and it usually takes us 2.25 hours to get to the Hump, assuming we aren't breaking trail, and another 1.5 hours to the top of the soccer field, assuming we are breaking trail.

Did a couple of guys on tele gear make it in to the hut late Saturday? They were gearing up in the parking lot when we left, but they were just crossing Heather Lake at 3:30 when we were getting ready to head out. Seems like that pace would have put them at the hut well after dark.

[SanFrantastico]

Everybody made it in... 4 guys on rented AT skis with no avy beacons. And then a teleskier and a snowboarder on snowshoes followed. The snowboarder came in last, just after dark.

[Lucy]

Nice to see another drop'n'in TR on the board and finally get to see the lovely wife on skis! Glad you folks got the goods. Interesting to read about your conditions/take on the weather. Apparently there was a fatal avalanche somewhere in the area on Monday. Seems like it probably involved someone in the party you describe. Sad and sobering.

http://www.fresnobee.com/updates/story/358542.html

[drop'n'in]

Hi Lucy,

Thanks for the link. I had just heard a rumor this morning that someone was killed up there. That does indeed sound like the guy we were talking with in the parking lot. Sh$%, what a bummer. We could see incredible amounts of blowing snow from the campground, so we knew conditions would have changed dramatically. The hut web page put up a warning that conditions were extremely dangerous Monday. My condolences to his friends and family.

[SanFrantastico]

F*CK!!! That f*cking blows. I feel so bad for the dude.

Yes - we did spend Sat night with them - a telemarker from Santa Barbara and a snowboarder from Fresno who snowshoed in. The teleskier was a really nice guy named Morgan who knew about teletips for sure.

Morgan actually didn't have a reservation for the hut that night so he crashed on the floor. They got in late Sat and were hoping to ski Sunday morning before leaving in the afternoon.

Saturday night the winds came up strong and all the basins up there were coated with windslab.



The boarder had been to the hut a few times before and we were a little unsure about the exit route and he told us to contour the hill outside the hut as the fastest way out, with no elevation lost. We started following the contour for a hundred feet or so before deciding that everything was WAY too loaded. Instead we descended to the creek drainage, traveled very carefully and found a safe route out with minimal exposure to danger.

We had heard about 1/2 dozen whumps the previous days on N. slopes and we had also dug an avy pit with sketch results on a South Slope, after riding it on Saturday. We told them about the whumphing & pit Sat. night.

After we turned around on the windloaded slope outside the hut I had an instinct to go back in and warn everyone at the hut about the avy danger & not to ride or ski that day. But I was sketched about crossing the slope again and we were racing the weather. Also I can be kind of a broken record on avy danger since I was caught under one last year. Now I wish I had gone back.

I thought that our skin tracks would be obvious and help get them out of there fast in the afternoon. It looks like they decided to stay Sunday night instead. Being buried is a lonely way to die and I'm sorry it happened to such a nice person. Now I'm sad today.

[steeleman]

That contouring route is NOT recommended in adverse conditions. The SNHA map explicitly points this out

http://www.sequoiahistory.org/pearlake/pear_lake200.pdf

[edit: looks like they did not get caught in the area contouring above Aster Lake, but instead got off route heading down the hump (probably in a whiteout) and got onto avy terrain near the watchtower. See here:
http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=585348#585348 ]