VIDEO: Junuary | Enjoying Some Lines In The Eastern Sierra Backcountry Last Week

“Driving out of Tahoe towards the Eastern Sierra, with the dog and the little camper in tow, my buddy said something about blue moons and new moons and full lunar eclipses. The plan was to do a few skins up some small lines and go to sleep early at camp early, so we could start the next day at 4 a.m. to enjoy a lunar eclipse hike, then a mountaintop sunrise. Looking up at the ridges, we could see occasional wind gusts swirling around the peaks nearby, so we started the day by hiking up a northeast facing bowl area to over 10,000 ft. and found decent snow and a fun wind lip to slash too! After that, we hiked the 11,000 ft. peak and on a northeast face, we got even better snow and some nice turns nearly all the way back to camp. After some beers and dinner at the campfire, I would wake up a few times with a noise of a gust of wind and look out the window and see the eclipse beginning to take shape. It was good to see the partial eclipse, because at 4 a.m., we were too worn out and just decided to sleep in. The next day the wind died down after having filled in many of the previous day’s tracks and we hiked a 12,000 ft. peak and dropped in a more northern facing line. The top half of the line was a little sketchy with almost drywall-like consistency and being on a splitboard was interesting in a few spots. The bottom half of the run had much better snow and we were able to get in some good carves before a fairly quick trek back to camp to wrap things up. It was good to be able to enjoy some June… eh – I mean January snow on the East side, even with the lack of deep snowpack! See the little video for another taste,” stated Chris Shearin, about his Eastern Sierra Backcountry Trip last week.