Backcountry
Conditions Report
Report from Saturday, April 27, 2024
Despite Tahoe’s place as a backcountry ski haven, Lassen and Star Peak are tied as the two nearest ultra-prominence peaks to Lake Tahoe.
Many have stared at Star Peak on the drive between the Wasatch and Tahoe. Its North Bowls tower over the outskirts of Winnemucca. However, being positioned in the desert between those two ski meccas it usually gets passed over.
Most trip reports for Star are based on hikers heading up the ATV road to the summit from the west. However, the prime ski terrain is found on the Northeast side of the mountain in the Star Canyon. There are some old mining roads working their way up to the base of the steep terrain.
To the extent there is a classic line on Star it is the East Couloir. However, being the last weekend of April, that line through the choke was rather tight.
The road to the fork and star canyon is passable in a regular AWD vehicle. However, we wanted to go a couple of drainages up to the north fork to drive to the snow line. This is where the Jeep came in handy.
From here we skinned up a low bowl to get onto the ridge line. Great Basin peaks all seem to have similar topography of big drainages from the summit ridge to the base. On this ridge, we could get the view of the descent line.
We got on to the main ridge line and intersected the summer ATV route, and the desert internal drainage of the Humboldt River below comes into view.
Once on the main ridge line, we saw the light storm the day earlier was mostly scoured on the bowl into the East Couloir. The summit has a windbreak and an antenna to mark.
After running into Matt Bansak at the summit, we clicked in to traverse over to the weather station to drop into the chute at the NE Bowl.
As noticed by Josh Daiek, when in the Great Basin, the clag always rolls in right after you click into downhill mode. Right at the drop in we couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead.
We had to patiently wait it out. But once the first sun patch came through we took full advantage of it. Our patience was rewarded.
The spring base had a good coating of six inches on top from the day before.
The bowl skied so well, we had to skin back up and do the other line we contemplated on the ascent.
By then the snow was so turning to mashed potatoes and we did a few hundred feet back up to the ridge line of our ascent route. We got one short ski down our first ascent bowl to the Jeep.
Not bad for almost May in the desert!
Photos
