SierraDescents | 2011
June 2, 2011
Say No to Summer
Okay, it's June 2 and I just bought a new pair of skis...for this season. (more)
May 31, 2011
Split Mountain
Huge, huge day on Split yesterday—we skied the north face right off the top of the north summit, then down into the Red Lake basin right beneath the east face and the (more)
May 28, 2011
Skiing Whitney’s North Face
Whitney has eluded me. When I first tried to ski this mountain the defeat was so humbling and so absolute it was years before I dared return to the Sierra backcountry. But, every (more)
May 24, 2011
Eureka Casper
Think of Eureka's Casper as an economy-class sleeping bag with higher aspirations. At roughly 1/4 the price of a high-end down bag, the Rteq™ synthetic 15°-rated Casper is (more)
May 23, 2011
Skiing Whitney!
I'm so excited—Whitney has eluded me since 2006, when I passed on skiing the Mountaineer's Route, figuring I'd get to it next season. Every year since then, I've waited for (more)
May 19, 2011
Panasonic TM700
Panasonic's TM700 hi-def camcorder offers us the technology equivalent of a Faustian bargain: you get something extraordinary, but it comes with an unexpected cost. The good can (more)
May 18, 2011
Steep Turns & ‘Edge of Never’
One of the things I love about ski mountaineering is that there's always something new to learn. Over the course of this season I've been trying to improve my steep skiing (more)
May 12, 2011
Muir’s East Buttress
In a way, I wished I'd never seen it. I was having a nice, easy backcountry skiing season, perfectly fine, and I didn't need any trouble. I didn't need to do anything special. I (more)
May 3, 2011
Portal Road, Snow, Permits
Despite the ease of access, the Whitney Portal region has a less than glowing reputation when it comes to backcountry skiing. Perhaps it's not so much that there's something (more)
April 28, 2011
Sony NEX-5
Sony's interchangeable-lens NEX-5 is both an oddly compelling and an oddly vexing digital camera. Despite its flaws, however, once you start using an NEX-5 it's hard to stop. I (more)
