It was Friday night after a few great days spent exploring around Mount Rose and we were huddled in Kristen and Mike's kitchen trying to decide what to ski next. Will was headed to Boundary Peak which sounded great, and we appreciated the invite, but the 4 hour drive each way wasn't very compatible with our plans. Then Kristen mentioned the Hoover Wilderness and started showing us pictures.
I'd never heard of the Hoover, but pictures of giant granite walls and white spires of rock rising from the desert floor to above 12,000 feet were an easy sell. A few frantic calls to confirm the road was open and it was settled - we hoped to check out one of the aesthetic couloirs ringing the vertical summit massif of the Matterhorn Peak.
As we drove south on I-395 in the morning, my expectations were low. But, when we turned west at Bridgeport and the sharp peaks and spires of the Sawtooth Ridge came into view, I couldn't contain my stoke.
We followed the winding road and its growing snowbanks to the end of Twin Lakes, accidentally parked in front of a buried no parking sign, and skinned off across the lake. With every steep closer, the Sierra Crest seemed to grow bigger above us.
Any sign of the summer trail was buried under a ridiculous amount of snow from a winter of atmospheric rivers, so we did our best to figure out the ideal route into Horse Creek. The Matterhorn is the jagged fang on the skyline center right:
Monday, March 27, 2023
Matterhorn Peak East Couloir Ski - 3.18.2023
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Mount Rose Highway Skiing - March 2023
Finally, around 1:00 AM I crawled into Mike and Kristen's house very relieved and somewhat surprised that I wasn't stuffed into a snowbank somewhere in Lassen County. Mike and Kristen are old friends who I've known since first encountering Mike's sharpied Colorado 14ers shirt in freshman geology. From skiing 14ers on graduation day, to spearfishing in the warm waters of Hawaii, to hiding from brown bears while deer hunting in AK, we have so many shared memories together. In the morning it was nice to catch up with them while they quickly downloaded me on current conditions in the Sierras before heading to work.
Solo and in a totally new-to-me climate and snowpack, I decided to dip my toes in with a day at Mount Rose Ski Area. Driving out of town, and leaving the desert behind, I was impressed with the huge snowbanks of the Sierras rising above me.

The rare inbounds day was a leg burner for me, and a good chance to interrogate as many strangers as I could about local conditions. I could only laugh at myself as most of these reasonable people couldn't answer my unusually specific questions about the climate history of the area. At the same time I was starting to form a mental model of the snowpack here, and was stoked on the challenge of operating out of my comfort zone.
The next morning after a nice breakfast date with Nyssa, I headed into the backcountry of the Mount Rose Highway. From the Tamarack Lake parking lot, I scrambled over the ten foot snowbank, then skinned towards Tamarack Peak. Coming from sea level, I couldn't believe the impact the elevation was having on me, and struggled to keep my heartbeat below the aerobic threshold.
From the peak I looked down on the deep blue waters of the lake.

Operating alone in this unfamiliar terrain, I spent extra time thinking about escape routes and likely avalanche behavior before spooning existing tracks into Tamarack's north bowl.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Anchorage Ski Outlook - 3.22.2023
Monday, March 13, 2023
Goat Couloir Ski - 12.30.2022
Goat Couloir is one of so many Southcentral AK ski classics
that has been on my radar forever, but seems to just keep getting pushed down
the list by other objectives. It’s tricky given its solar aspect and the high winds
that rip through the Crow Pass gap. Plus, there's the teetering schoolbus cornices
that are always threatening to peel off and bounce down the line.
Goat as seen from TT43 in January 2019.
On a calm gray day in late December, Nyssa and I thought we
had a window for good snow and acceptable stability to go goat hunting. Plus,
the striking rock walls of the couloir would hopefully provide some much needed visual
reference under the contrastless faint light of a dark midwinter day.
Skinning away from the Crow Creek winter parking, the alders stood
tall and unencumbered by snow. We followed a tube through the thickets, then started
the tedious skin up the creek. We tried not to slip off of the rickety ice
bridges and plunge our skins into the open water as we high stepped up the
boulders of the ravine.
Friday, March 10, 2023
Nest Peak Ski - 2.19.2023
On a rare sunny Saturday in February we skinned out of the Penguin parking lot hoping to check out the north couloir and west face of Nest Peak.
