Report from May 18, 2022

Yesterday, we took a look at Ellery Bowl and Banana chute off Tioga Pass and they looked bad…

We decided to cruise up to White Mountain and have a look.

The past week or so hasn’t been great in the backcountry around here due to the new snow and the process of going from new snow to corn again.

Ended up pretty good.

We got out there skiing by about 10:30 am and the corn was high quality.

Our group ended up splitting up with me staying on the near ridge and skiing 3 of the fun chutes there.

I had a great time!

My big mistake was climbing up the Notch Chute and hoping it was wide enough and that it held good snow.

I was dead wrong.

The chute was only about 12″ wide in one spot where I’d guestimated it to be a ski length wide…

All the rocks in the chute were gathering too much sun and making the snow rotten.

At one point I was even worried about a wet slide…

No bueno.

After I climbed up Notch Chute, I skied 3 happy, fun chutes and felt much better…

I skied the first 2 chutes solo, then the 3rd with Fox and Andy after they came back from the far ridge.

We’d stayed in radio contact the entire time and they reported good skiing.

The whole day added up to 8+ miles, 4,000-vertical-feet, 3 chutes, 2 buddies, and very little dirt walking.

I was weary back at the car and glad to get boots off and flip flops on.

We skipped Mobile Mart and headed straight home for the Warriors game.

The Warriors crushed Luka and the Mavericks and I was screaming my head off and unable to move.

The game was a great end to a great day in California!

Photos in Chronological Order