Friday I took a drive south to check on snow depths, trailhead access, and look for avalanches. I did not see any avalanches although clouds obscured the upper elevation terrain. Low elevation snow depth was not impressive with little snow at 6,000' and around a foot at 7,000'.
Big Pine Creek seemed the best bet with the road plowed to ~7,300' just below Sage Flat Campground. I checked CalTopo and noticed a lot of low angle terrain above the campground, so I made the plan to have a look.
Saturday morning dawned glorious.
One of the big unknowns for the day was the creek crossing. I poked around for about twenty minutes before finding this spot. It required a short step across open, rushing water onto an ice shelf. Not terribly dangerous, but I was always relieved to get across without incident.
The next big question was snow condition. I was surprised to find a largely supportable base. I feared a brushy wallow fest, but aside from an occasional hollow bush, travel was easy.
For sure this doesn't look super inviting for the skier. Probably the reason I saw no one else up there! The broad open slopes left and right of the large pine center-left were my goal.
Came across this cool deer track & scat.
Higher up the brush was well covered. The base remained supportable and there was 4" to 8" of lighter snow on the surface.
Run #1. So much fun!
Even the lower slopes skied well.
Saturday was so good I decided to double it up and go back Sunday.
Super quiet. Super skiing. Safe too, with slope angles less than thirty degrees for nearly the entire tour.
The avalanche concern kept me out of the main avalanche paths and away from the higher, steeper terrain. I experienced no cracking or collapsing of the snow pack. There were no natural avalanches.
The main problem throughout the Eastern Sierra is basal facets (i.e. old rotten/sugary snow). In this zone there was no previous snow on the lower slopes and only an inch or two on higher slopes, so the basal facets were not a major concern. Higher elevations which held more snow previous to the big storm are likely much more dangerous.
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