The Thumb

Jason and I left Friday after work in his new truck to meet up with Casey in Bishop for a little weekend backcountry jaunt. As we sped down 395 around midnight, the full moon was turning the snowy faces of the eastern Sierra into an eerie but really cool moonscape.

We camped that night with Casey at a DNR campground for $2 a night. Too tired to set up a tent, we threw a blow-up mattress on the back of Jason's truck and slept out under the stars. It was so comfortable and warm, Casey had to drag us out of bed in the morning before we got sunburnt. It was 80 degrees by midday.





After settling on a peak, we found our way up a smooth dirt road, which turned into a very rough dirt road, which turned into a ridiculously faint rocky path, which turned into just making up a random, rallying way over the boulders, bogs and sagebrush as fast and far as we could up straight toward the peak we wanted to get to. The old truck and the shiny Lexus did quite well and saved us a good mile or two, but when at last it was impossible to go any farther, we were still out of range of any consistently skinnable snow.

So we strapped the splitboards/skis to our multi-day winter packs, eased them on to our already whimpering backs, and started to pick our way up a steep, rough barren ridge. It was physically and mentally frustrating. Four hours later we had only gone two miles.



Finally we reached the snow level. However, the snow had started to harden, so we still had steep difficult side-hilling to gain just enough elevation to justify setting up camp.


Camp was sweet. There was flat ground, a sick view and running water. We had hauled up yogurt, dill, cucumber, tomato, ground beef, feta cheese, onion, bell pepper, and hummus... so we ate some super delicious euros that night. Followed by chocolate mouse and tea.

Jason and I slept comfortably and warmly in our snuggly tent. It was hard to leave in the morning. Even Whiskey, who usually wants to go do whatever he does at 5 AM every morning and will poke you in the face with his snout until you let him outside, got barely halfway out the tent door before turning around and snuggling back up against Jason's sleeping bag.


That morning, working our way up the harder morning snow, I discovered how useful ski crampons are. Over a frozen lake and up a step, we got to the base of the chute that accessed the ramp to the summit. At this point I called it a day... the skinning was too steep and someone had to guard the chute to make sure it didn't run away.

As I napped and soaked up the sun, the guys beasted their way to the summit, where they got beautiful summit views (thanks to Casey for photos), and a powder ride down.




The powder turned to great corn coming through the chute, over the steps down to the lake, from the lake to camp, and from camp to a river canyon, at which point I attempted to show off my mad splitboard telemark-skiing skills by keeping skinned up and in ski mode through the canyon. The trick was keeping enough of an edge that I didn't slide into the river. I almost made it the whole way, up to a quarter mile from the cars, where we ran out of snow patches to connect.

Back down the dirt roads, we went to Bishop and ate the traditional Mexican feast.