3 day sierra split, virginia lakes, rock creek

[Beantown]

I drove up 12/14 from Big Bear to Holiday Camp by Tom's place off the 395 to camp, and arrived at 12:30 am, forecast was in the single digits, it was freakin cold. Set up my tent real quick and got to sleep.

12/15 In the morning I met up with a friend and we went to Virgina Lakes to ride the lower chute on south peak, northern aspect. Fresh tracks and nobody around with about 18" of fresh stuff on the old snow. Pit test confirmed some instability in the snow pack, with no wind and cold temps we slayed the slope. There were no wind slabs present, and we were on the windward side of the slope with having previous north winds the day before.





12/16 4 of us went back to south peak to ride the north eastern chute. pit test confirmed some instability in the snow pack. After the test, 2 skiers next to each other and the third skier started to skin by them, a whoomp occurred and a they felt the snow collapse under them, and a shooting crack around the skier occurred. So we went back to the other slope we rode yesterday.




12/17 I skinned up the groomed road at the rock creek sno park 5 miles to mosquito flats, then about another mile in several feet of fresh snow breaking trail. I wanted to get a nice view of little lakes valley. Plan to split there sometime this season. I rode the groomed road back down and headed home.





camp



all my pictures

http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/beant ... t=2&page=1

A fantastic 3 days in the sierra splitting and snow camping.

[limpingcrab]

Beautiful and makes me jealous! I splitboarded out of Wolverton towards Pear Lake in SEKI on Wednesday and also noticed some instability but it was under a thick layer of ice that was hard to break during any type of test.

Still had a blast on some low angle bowls and in the trees. Looks like I need to head to the east side soon!

Thanks for sharing.

[Silky Smooth]

awesome trip glad to see people out and about in the winter

[Jason]

I've never skied, snowboarded or camped in the snow, but I have to admit that looks pretty awesome! Thanks for the report.

[cmon4day]

Very Nice!!!

[DAVELA]

Amazing.Thanks for the tr....Great to see a ton of snow in the sierra after 3 dry winters...I ll be snowshoeing mt pinos this weekend ...about 8inches of fresh snow!All hail El Nino!!!Yay!!!

[Beantown]

ive only been to mt pinos once, heard it can be good in winter if we ever have a real one. hoping to get out in the BC around big bear once there is enough snow. I'm planning another split trip to the sierra 1st week of jan again, they got dumped on again! Wish some of that would swing south down here.

[balance]

Nice trip report Beantown. Thanks.

Sounds like the avalanche danger was pretty high.

[Beantown]

yeah there was some avy risk, all signs were green lights on the skin up until i dug the pit on the first day, made us nervous so we rode down along the treesin the chute at first, id say the slope was 30 or less, did not have my inclometer tho. second day dug a pit and got better results so that made us feel better, but then got the whoomph!

these has been a lot of natural slides after the recent storms in mammoth. http://www.esavalanche.org/

hope that will subside for when i head up there again. There is a ground surface depth hoar layer which is causing slides with the new snow.

[DAVELA]

Beautiful day at mt pinos.I could see the sierra buried in snow!Bt,the scenery is fantastic but i dont know if there is much snoboarding opportunity at pinos...its great for xc skiing n snowshoeing.Snow coverage was about 6in and not fresh anymore-but good enough for a great time.