Skiing Great Basin National Park

 Yesterday I headed over to the Snake Range in Great Basin National Park. The road up Lehman Creek is plowed to the lower campground (open) where I was able to skin right from the parking area.

 Having been here before I knew I needed to stay on the summer trail pretty far before heading towards this huge glade. Fortunately I found a decent route and an easy stream crossing.

I would not say the approach was easy, just not horrible! I was definitely stoked to get to the base of the glades where skinning was much more straightforward.

I was just blown away by the size of this thing!

I was able to attain the ridge and follow it to the top of a little knoll. A bit wind affected at first but fairly cold and dry the rest of the way with well over a foot of new snow high and about 10" low.

Was kinda salivating here!

Was like skiing a wide open blue run at a ski area with no one around.

Looking back at my tracks and the knoll I attained. Much more terrain with bigger lines to the west.

 Wow! Terrific tour.

Eastside of the Schell Creek Range

I went out for a short, two day road trip east of here. The first day I toured up on the east side of the Schell Creek Range. Studying maps I noticed a road that got pretty far up a canyon with apparently good ski terrain. The road was north above the creek, so I figured it got pretty good sun exposure.

Sadly a short section still had not melted out. Might have made it through this drift, but there were two deeper ones just above.

 Parked it there at about 7000'. Too bad because I ended up hiking a lot of this.

After about 40 minutes of walking I got to continuous snow and a decent view of my objective. Took a stab at crossing the creek and bushwhacking in around here, but the crossing was too gnarly and the brush too thick.

Found a decent crossing and a lot less forest/brush a bit higher. Still a lot of dense aspen, but fortunately there was a clear little corridor in the creek bed.

Springs

Clouds rolled in as I got up near the base of the chute.

Skirting the edge I was largely able to stay out of the huge aspen grove.

Got up to the throat and started feeling a little concerned about heading up the chute. I knew the high terrain had gotten over a foot of snow with strong winds - which were still blowing up there and being in the chute would leave me totally exposed to avalanches. 

Turned around at the throat, just above here.

Impressive runout zone!

Good skiing for a bit. Especially along the edge. Then a good dose of tight "jungle" skiing.

The line is a beauty though. Hope to be back someday when access is better and avalanche danger lower.

 

Back At It

 Took an unexpected break last week. Was doing pullups on a bar installed in the door jam by a previous owner when it failed on my third go. Jammed my big toe pretty good. Thought it was broken for a bit. Hurt like hell!

Fortunately it felt ok after a day, but I took it easy for a few more days to let it heal right. My first tour after the fall was a short one up to the "Old Ski Hill" as it's known locally.

It really started dumping as I reached the top.

After a quick transition I was welcomed by clearing skies.

Enjoyed a fun run. About 3" to 5" over a solid melt/freeze crust. Glad I had the fat boards (~120mm underfoot). Barely scraped the crust at all.

Toe felt ok. Energy solid, so I went for another tour the next day. Decided to check out one of the shoulders in the Schell Creek Range.

Looks like some sort of critter hunkered down during the storm and then popped out once things settled down.

Nice weather. Nice scenery.

The latest series of storms weren't big, but smoothed things out nicely.

Pretty similar skiing to the day before. Hit the crust occasionally, but still fun, fast skiing.

Second time up I reached a little knob with cool views of fine ski terrain.

These glades skied well. Kinda tight and had to watch the snakes though.

Lookin' up at my tracks from the first run and my skin track.

Yesterday I went back to the Schell Creek Range to a zone I had skied early season. Coverage was much better. Parked here. Might have gotten further but didn't want to mess around with a stuck truck. Pretty short approach anyhow.

Heading up. Note the old miner's shack low left.

More views on the way up.

Reached another mini summit with tolerable views of the neighborhood.

This area skied a little better. Only hit crust near the bottom of the runs.

First run.

Good enough to take three.

 Felt like I dodged a bullet with my toe. Somehow that little setback made me enjoy these tours more than usual. Gotta be grateful!

Corn?

 Before I ramble on about yesterday's tour I thought I'd share a quote from an article I just read.

“The experience of novelty, or going to places you had never been before, actually seemed to have an even larger association with positive emotion on that day.”

This is something I discovered a long time ago. It is what led to my decision to move to Ely. It is what drives me to find "new" ski lines.

The days when I set out for new territory, find great terrain and good skiing are simply the best. Yesterday was another one of those.

 After a stretch of warm, sunny weather I got to believing there had to be some decent corn skiing out there. I checked maps and old photos and decided to try this zone in the Schell Creek Range.

It was cloudy early. Even had a few snowflakes, so I wasn't sure the snow would soften. One possibility for the day was the big bowl center. Doesn't look like much in this photo, but that's about 3,000'.

The ascent route took me up a beautiful, moderately sloped canyon.

Wind waves. In the snow. In the clouds.

I got up to the head of the ascent canyon where I kind of ran out of steam. The breeze was picking up and the snow was petering out, so I settled in front of these lone trees to snack and transition.

Took a moment to just sit and enjoy the views.

The descent of the canyon was terrific fun. The corn had cooked perfectly. Soft and velvety smooth.

A fine run top to bottom.

 It wasn't a big day, wasn't steep at all, but it was new. It was fun. The scenery was amazing. Put a great big smile on my face!

Visitors!

 I had visitors the last couple of days. Friends Rick and Reeve came out for a quick ski trip escaping wind hammered funk in the Eastern Sierra.

 Yesterday we went to the Schell Creek Range to attempt a line I've had my eyes on for a good while. I took this photo two weeks ago. We did the avalanche chute on the right.

Moody morning midway up.

Reeve took this one of me getting higher up in the chute.

On the ascent we weren't too sure how good the skiing was going to be. The snow was kind of wind packed, shallow powder. Turned out it skied great. Got a couple shots of Rick and Reeve got a nice video of me.
 

Those guys were so stoked they went up for a run in the adjacent chute. I elected to head back to the truck to nurse my back.

Today we did a little gambling. With a fantastic day in the bag, we ventured into some unknown terrain to try a line on Ward Mountain. We couldn't drive nearly as far as we had hoped due to deep snow, but skinning up the road was easy. Came across this "fountain" on the way up. Probably was an amazing ice sculpture earlier this winter.

Skinning shenanigans.

Ended up doing some mildly unpleasant bush/timber whacking once we left the road to attain this ridge.

With rapid warming and an apparently long way to our goal we decided to bail.

Actually had an enjoyable short descent on corn type snow before reaching the road again. Not epic fun like yesterday, but still mostly enjoyable. Nice to know the lay of the land back there. Will have to go back and give it another go someday.

Really happy to have visitors! I was feeling like a ski hermit out here.