[TR] Mt Gardiner - Tour 5/6/2011

[chris]

Trip: Mt Gardiner - Tour

 

Date: 5/6/2011

 

Trip Report:

With the May weather in the Cascades being so "eh", I took a trip down to the Eastside of the Sierra for a six-day tour. The territory west of the crest, between Whitney and the Palisades, rarely sees a soul. We saw ski tracks on day two from someone heading south several days earlier, then nothing more until the last day as we approached the parking lot. Our camps were at 11,000', the ragged boreal edge of treeline there.

 

One hopeful descent that we wanted to do but had to pass on was this gem, the Northwest Couloir on Dragon Peak. A crown was visible 1/5 from the top (in the shaded area of the photo, completely flushing the couloir to a bed surface that shined icily at us in the right light. Still, this is a pretty line!

A lot of photos and a little bit of text can be found on my blog: http://climbskirun.blogspot.com/2011/05/heading-south-six-days-in-high-sierra.html

 

 

Gear Notes:

Used ski crampons on three days.

Didn't use boot crampons or ice axes.

Rope/harness essential to negotiate North Dragon Pass.

 

Approach Notes:

The flight into Mammoth Lakes is straight forward, and cost-effective with some advanced planning. Other options are to fly into Reno (4 hours to Bishop) or Las Vegas (5 hours to Bishop). Our trailhead was outside of Independence.

[danhelmstadter]

sick! i may head down for a couple weeks in june, seems like a good year to shlarp ski routes.

[wayne]

Nice thing about places other than the NW: The bad weather actually goes away!