Jawbone & Alice

 I toured the last three days, keeping it local. Thursday I tried my hand in Jawbone Canyon up Bishop Creek.

 Actually, I climbed "Little Jawbone" a shallow drainage parallel and east of Jawbone proper. It provided easy travel all the way up to pt 11286 - my goal for the day.

Low down in Little Jawbone.

Jawbone headwall.

Pt 11286 provided nice views. Was wondering if this line went, but alas it did not.

Views south along Table Mountain.

Northeast to Bishop

I skied the headwall and then down Jawbone. Fair to good skiing throughout. Warm temps have led to no/poor refreezes overnight, so there's a lot of soft snow out there.

Up canyon view to the headwall.

Yesterday my friend Phoebe and I checked out the South Fork of Big Pine Creek. This chute heading up towards Mt Alice caught our attention.

Phoebe skins up. She had just come up from sea level and was feeling the altitude, but was a real trooper, making it about 3/4s of the way up the chute.

The east aspect of the chute meant an early warm up with mushy snow, but the skiing was surprisingly good. Generally 2" to 3" of slush over a supportable base.

Today I decided to take a shot at summiting Mt Alice. Got a good early start, but the snow got quite soft as soon as the sun hit it. 

Above the low chute the drainage opens up into a wide, beautiful canyon.

The view up canyon to the headwall, where I found the best skiing of the day.

Nice Sierra granite.

Views from the ridge atop the headwall. Mts Winchell, Agassiz, Robinson, Gendarme, Two Eagle, and Cloudripper.

The canyon from near the summit - which involved about a half hour of scrambling and postholing to get to.

Coyote plateau from the summit.

Our summit register entry from 15+ years ago.

The skiing wasn't great, but not bad either. Always great to summit!