Conditions Report
Trip Report
Report from May 7, 2024
Yesterday, we went for a line I’ve been drooling over for years.
The North Face of Mt. Gibbs, California.
The only problem is that when we went to drive up to the Horse Meadows Trailhead, the road was closed…
“North Face”
12,779′ Mt. Gibbs
Sierra Nevada Mountains, CA
- Summit (actually a ridgeline): 12,200 feet
- Car: 7,300 feet
- Vertical From Car: 4,900 feet
- Vertical skied: 1,500 feet in the chute (traversing back to the car on skis for another 1,500 vertical feet after the chute down to 9,000′)
- Max Pitch: 42º
- Average Pitch: 40º
- Aspect: North
- Distance: 14-miles round trip
- Time From Car to Summit: 5 hours & 25 minutes
- Car to Car Time: 9 hours & 9 minutes
- Recommended Equipment: crampons, ice axe x2, skins
Aaron Fox & I were meeting up with pro skier Bernie Rosow, and when he showed up, he was disgusted.
We followed him and tried to find another road that could circumvent this closure on Horse Meadows Road, but to no avail.
That other road was washed out and closed as well.
Bernie explained that the past two summers had powerful monsoon thunderstorms that flooded and washed out dozens of roads in the area.
We had no choice.
We piled gear onto our pack and slogged the extra 1.8 miles to the trailhead.
We’d never backcountry skied with Bernie, and we figured he was about as fast as we were on the uphill.
It was a horrible miscalculation.
Bernie took off running.
In the first two minutes of the day, I knew I was f#%ked…
Bernie blasted off at full throttle and never looked back.
I didn’t see him again until we arrived at Gibbs Lake – 5 miles, 2,500 vertical feet, and 2.75 hours later.
I arrived at the lake run ragged.
Both my shoes were untied, pants Caddywhompus, and backpack askew.
I hadn’t stopped for a second of that death march and had been hiking at my 100% the entire time.
I was throttled.
Bernie was fine – jollily throwing his ski poles in the air with maximum angular momentum, trying to see if he could get one to stick right side up.
He wasn’t tired at all.
I was ready to go home.
I was exhausted, and the wind was howling.
Bernie said, “This is the Sierra; it’s always windy. It’ll be less windy up there.”
None of that made sense to me.
I threw on my skins and followed him uphill to Kidney Lake, where the North Face of Gibbs lurked.
I was dumbfounded by Bernie’s strength and speed.
He blasted off once again, and we did all we could to keep up.
We didn’t.
He was hanging in space on the apron of the North Face of Gibbs as we approached Kidney Lake.
Bernie switched to booting up and fell in line.
He put in the entire skin track and bootpack.
I was thrashed from the initial forest sprint.
I was counting out 30 steps uphill, then 10 breath breaks.
At some breaks, I closed my eyes and nearly fell asleep…
There are very few moments in my life when I’ve been that drained.
The water and Tahoe Trail Bar I inhaled at the transition from skins to boots and crampons started kicking in about halfway up the chute, and I began to gain strength.
I switched from 30 steps to 120 steps between rest breaks.
When I caught up to Bernie, he was at the top of the chute with his skis on, ready to drop.
He said, “I gotta go to work. I’m gonna try to get to the car in two hours.”
That seemed impossible to my exhaustion-filled brain.
But that’s just what he did.
Bernie dropped in, threw plumes of cold smoke to the winds, and was never seen by us again.
He texted hours later, saying he was safe and had made it out in only two hours.
It took us three hours…
Fox showed up at the top of the chute shortly after me, and we belly-laughed about how badass Bernie was and how he’d destroyed us.
We were blown away.
We took a 20-minute break to eat, drink, rest, transition, and, most importantly, take in the view.
I felt like I hadn’t looked up once the whole day.
The views of Mt. Dana, Kindey Chute, and the entire serrated amphitheater were breathtaking.
Fox dropped first and crushed the upper section’s powder snow.
I dropped second, went a ways skiers left of their tracks, and found good powder snow up high.
The good snow morphed into a mix of soft ice and winded snow in the first choke.
I roared past the choke, pulled over Fox, and found good snow on the skier’s left, following Bernie’s track to a T.
The snow in this middle section of the chute was thin, soft, and responsive.
In the second choke, the snow was a mix of soft ice and soft, large sastrugi.
I joyfully hacked my way down it, admiring the rigid red walls on either side of me.
The apron held soft snow, and I blitzed down to Kidney Lake and fell onto my poles, gasping.
That chute was one helluva experience yesterday.
Fox joined me at the lake, and we began the slog home.
We followed Bernie’s tracks way out skier’s right until we eventually ran outta consistent snow.
We sat down again and laughed out loud about how Bernie had Berned us so badly.
The dude is a machine!
We took another long break as we transitioned back to shoes at 9,000′.
I pulled a liter of water from the creek and drank it all on the spot.
My third liter of the day.
It was another hour and a half until we’d reach the car.
Numb.
Giddy.
Drunk on lactic acid.
It took us a while to get our minds around what had happened.
We’d been moving for nine hours and nine minutes.
We drove directly to the Mono Mart, where we absorbed a steak ceaser, fish tacos, and some fries.
“I dunno if I can drive home,” said Fox.
We were that tired.
We got home past 7 p.m. and started our recovery processes: protein drinks, stretching, a foam roller, Theragun, Normatec compression therapy, a gallon of water, and some mobility work.
On the drive home, we laughed one last time, joking about how hard Bernie had smoked us.
I still can’t believe how strong he is.
He said he’s the slowest one of his normal backcountry squad.
Unreal…
Thanks, California!
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