Armstrong Canyon

With all of the snow in the Southern Sierra I've been wanting to head down valley to ski some of the big routes down there. 

I wasn't too sure about conditions so I chose to tour up the moderate slopes of Armstrong Canyon.  It diagonals up and left in the prominent shadow.  

Leaving the truck and the cinder cones behind. It took about 40 minutes to drive up from Aberdeen on the 4wd road.

A twenty minute sagebrush hop got me to this tongue of snow. Thankfully it was well consolidated and continuous.

In short order the coverage was great.

After cruising up the gully for a good bit the views opened up.

Multicolored formation. Lots of mining in this zone once upon a time.

Mt. Perkins.

Armstrong Col. I skied to the base.

Several other nice lines in the area too.

Acres of windboard! Skied pretty well up high.

The view down into the valley from my turnaround spot.

The descent was a mixed bag. Got one good pitch of decent powder skiing in some trees, but was a little manky lower where the new snow was getting warm. Low down there wasn't much new snow and the skiing was pretty good again.

I plan on heading south again when things corn up a little more!