Many Steps Make Mountains

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mount Wood on the left, Koip Peak in the background, Mt Lewis front and center, with Mt Gibbs peaking in on the right

Sunrise over Mono Lake

Here are a few photos of just another day of looking for good snow on the Eastern slope of the Sierra. On this morning, in all honesty, we were pretty tired. We had put up two solid days of over 10 hours and 13 miles each day and were starting to slow down a bit. PK and I were looking for some “low-hanging fruit” before heading back to Truckee.

Despite an earlier start; it was not early enough. The sun was in full force as we headed up from Grant Lake.

Mt Wood is a very straightforward objective, as you gain the Parker Bench, the peak comes into view. What you see is what you get.

June Mountain Ski Area, Carson Peak and San Joaquin Mountain behind PK on the ascent

Booting up warm snow on Mt Wood’s East couloir

Looking down into Mt Wood’s Northeast face where a skin track was picking up through the rocks. Frank LaForge was that you?

PK making some very bad snow look good.

Summit shot of myself, courtesy of PK.

Here is looking at Mt Wood and our line from the highway. We climbed and skied the main couloir to the summit.

PK on the final push to the summit.

Well, it’s always better to have gone out skiing in the mountains to find out the snow was not good than to simply stay home on wonder about it… but we confirmed it was pretty bad on this day. Admittedly we were a bit late getting started, but the main couloir was so rutted and tracked that I can’t imagine we missed much better conditions earlier in the morning.