Trail Report: Mt Whitney, Mt Muir, Sonora Peak, and some skiing

Sunday, May 10 - Sonora Peak

After celebrating Mother's Day with my family, I hopped in the car and headed up to the Eastern Sierra. It had been over a month since I skied last and was well overdue. Besides, I had a Whitney permit for Wednesday.

I left with just enough time to go for a hike up Sonora Peak (11,462'), the highest point in Alpine County, where I had just spent my winter. I parked just off the road at Sonora Pass and hit the trail at 6:15pm.

It wasn't long after I crossed the snowfield on the short north facing descent en route to the summit when I realized I had forgotten my headlamp. Now I really needed to move, with just a couple hours of daylight to squeeze in 5 miles with 2100' of climbing. Doable, but I'd need to move quickly. I decided on a turnaround time of 7:30pm.

The ridgeline trail led me to a steep chute where I teed into the Pacific Crest Trail. I headed northbound 0.4mi before veering west up the ridge towards Sonora Peak.

The ridgeline was lightly covered in snow and I made good time to the summit, topping out at 7:25pm. For the descent I chose a more direct line from the summit to the chute, saving me 0.4mi on the way back. I reached the car at 8:19pm, just as visibility was beginning to decrease.

Pano from Sonora Peak, @7:27pm

Monday, May 11 - Green Creek Couloir

I made the 1.5 hour drive in the dark to Green Creek trailhead, where I awoke to great views on Green Couloir, my objective for the day. I found my friend Darwin's truck and woke him up. We left the trailhead at 7am, and after a bit of bushwhacking and a stream crossing we put our skis on at 7:45am.

The snowfield was a bit steeper than anticipated, which combined with the variable refreeze meant a fair amount of bootpacking, slowing our pace substantially. As we climbed higher, along with the sun, the marginally frozen snow quickly deteriorated into knee deep slush. We set our sights on a good transition beneath a rock and put our heads down.

The skiing wound up being quite fun with the unusual mix of slushy snow, frozen snow, rocks, bushes, and questionable snowbridges keeping things exciting. It was Darwin's first ever ski tour, and my first time skiing a couloir more than a few hundred feet long.

The exit from the snowfield to the car took about as long as the approach. We enjoyed nearly 1700' of descending in total. I'll return with a deeper snowpack and better overnight refreeze and ski it from the top, about 800' above our turnaround.

After finishing our Green Creek tour by noon, we made the leisurely drive to Lee Vining where we got lunch at The Mobil before heading up to Tioga Pass, checking out the ski touring opportunities along the way. All of the Forest Service campgrounds were closed in the area, which left us no option but to camp illegally at the turnoff to Sawmill Campgroung from Saddlebag Lake Road, where we ran into another party of three humans and two dogs planning to ski False White the following day.

Darwin on the skin track

Green Creek Couloir from the creek

Tuesday, May 12 - East Face, False White

We were moving just after 6am, giving us an hour head start on the snow conditions. We were starting and topping out at about 2000' higher than at Green Creek, which we hoped would provide a more solid freeze.

After making the first creek crossing, where Darwin opted to wade while I headed a ways upstream to a snow bridge, we hopped on excitingly well frozen snow which made a continuous path to the north ridge of False White, with only one short unskiable band of dirt. The skinning was wide open and mostly low angle, make for a fast and easy ascent. As we neared the top around 9:15am the snow had already begun to soften considerably.

We dropped in around 9:40am and enjoyed wide open, high speed turns down to the first plateu. After greeting last nights neighbors, we carried our speed across the flats before enjoying another fun pitch down into Fantail Lake, where the snow turned into real heavy slop. We skated along the firm edge of the snowfield and popped our skis off to walk up the dirt patch. There was one more short, fun descent through tight trees with limited coverage before taking off boots and skis to cross the stream. A short walk led us back to the car at 10:50am.

Darwin and I headed back down to The Mobil, where I had stashed my loyal slug bug. We refueled and said our goodbyes: I had a Whitney permit the following day, and Darwin was heading back over Sonora Pass to spend time in Yosemite. He was really hoping that Tioga pass would've opened...

The thermometer hit 97 degrees on the way through relatively low-lying Bishop, a place I envisioned as a mountain town until this trip. After grabbing some groceries I cruised through Lone Pine and started the up the steep grade towards Whitney Portal.

Pulling into the campsite in mid afternoon, my accomplaices Henry and Kai had already made camp. It was great to see them face to face after some frantic last minute planning via phone and text. Speaking of which... Henry and Kai had stopped in to the local hiking shop to get the conditions report: snow, lots of snow. Crampons and ice axe would be mandatory. I was naturally skeptical, and also concerned about the lack of training we had if we did get our hands on full glacier gear. Trekking poles and microspikes might be enough, and we didn't need to get in over our heads.

We enjoyed a leisurely evening around camp and went for a short walk up to the Whitney Portal store, where OG East-sider and store owner Doug assured us we'd be okay with our limited equipment. With alarms set for a 4am start, we hit the hay.

Darwin skinning up the East Face of False White

Looking North towards White Mountain (left) and Mt Conness (right)

Happy skiers after a wonderful descent

Wednesday, May 13 - Mt Whitney, Mt Muir

We were walking by 4:10am, a respectable start time. The going was easy on the well graded trail in the cool pre-dawn air, but we tempered our excitement with hopes of fending off negative effects of the altitude later in the day. We easily followed the trail up to Mirror Lake, with just a few snow patches, stopping to revel in the stunning alpenglow huge granite features we were approaching. I burned my one and only wag bag at Mirror Lake and topped up on water. Just a few switchbacks up the trail we transitioned to microspikes.

We continued with minimal effort up the low angle snowfields towards the 99 switchbacks, which we knew was going to be the crux of the day, and potentially our turnaround point if we deemed the adjacent gully unsafe. A couple hours after leaving Mirror Lake we got eyes on the pitch. I guzzled a rockstar and some other calories to get amped for the 1000' vertical, moderately icey ascent.

As the pitch steepened I pulled ahead of Henry and Kai, not giving them much option to change their mind. The microspikes had great traction on the firm snow, but a uncontrolled slip would've resulted in a very long slide, potentially with serious consequences. We banked on the snowfield softening significantly by our descent, which I wasn't worried about given the skiing conditions over the last few days. After an hour of kicking and stepping we made it to Trail Crest and breathed a sigh of relief.

After enjoying some sun, food, and water we got back on our feet and kept the momentum rolling. The day was still far from over however. The snowfield had taken a lot of energy. As we approached Mt Muir (14,028'), which I initially planned to tag on the descent, the gap back to Kai and Henry was growing, so I started a cross country detour up towards the peak. I split off from the main trail a bit earlier than ideal, but after a few minutes of traversing the south ridge I made it to the summit blocks. They looked a lot steeper than they had online, but I knew the climbing wouldn't be too hard. It still had a hefty pucker factor with one slab move in particular that felt a bit beyond what I should've been doing alone. With adrenaline pumping, I topped out at 10:49am, and enjoyed the expansive views.

The downclimb felt easier than the ascent (minus the blind dismantling of the slab) and I made it back to the trail just ten minutes after topping out. I had some more pep in my step with the extra adrenaline and caught back up to Kai and Henry in no time. At this point we were nearing 14,000', and moving noticeably slower than we were earlier in the day. Nevertheless, we kept a steady pace and topped out on Whitney (14,500') at 12:08pm. The three of us enjoyed the summit to ourselves for a while, before our new friend Kevin joined us. I took Henry's wag bag off his hands, took my highest lifetime crap, and we started the long descent back to the trailhead.

The descent was generally uneventful. We were able to safely glissade down the snowfield from Trail Crest. We got off trail dropping back in to Mirror Lake, but after we passed that point it was easy going back to the car. Doug had told us the day prior that last order from the grill at the Whitney Portal Store was 5pm, and a 3mph pace put us on track to miss it. We took advantage of the comfortable grade and made great time down the last handful of miles. With time to spare, we savored or Victory Burgers at a picnic table outside.