Big Pine Creek to Taboose Creek
We’ve previously been mucking around the foothills in this range but now finally diving into the heart of the High Sierra.
Starting off from Big Pine Creek Trailhead
Looking at the ridge from Norman Clyde Peak to Middle Palisade
Booting up South Fork Pass
Looking at the next part of the shoulder where we’ll be heading to the top of that prominent snow couloir on Bolton Brown’s Shoulder
Foreshadowing a lot more flats to come
Heading up the north ridge of Bolton Brown
Now looking at the next basin.
A crazy snow year for the Sierra even for this time of year.
The John Muir Trail goes through those woods and probably won’t even be hikeable for at least a couple more months.
Looking northwest where the JMT arcs left and drops off into the obscured drainage
Never seen so much white in my life - your eyes would be fried if you had no sunglasses.
And very flat - a little over 5 continuous miles of flat skiing and my kneecaps were starting to ache a bit.
The final climb up to Taboose Pass
Unnamed but it looked cool
The descent from Taboose Pass was some of the best skiing of the traverse.
Surprisingly, nothing really got goopy the entire day we were out.
A looot of debris at the very end though
Crazy seeing the power of some of the avalanches that ripped through here, rocks and trees strewn about
At a certain point you really can’t ski through it
The slides must have flowed at least as low as 7000’
Walking through a complete alpine desert after all of the eye-burning white terrain we covered earlier
A good feeling getting back to the car after around 5 miles of walking.
We parked the Taboose Creek shuttle at around 4500’ before the dirt road got a little too bumpy.
Notes
- This was probably ~24 miles and ~8200 feet of vertical gain in around 12 ½ hours.