SierraDescents | 2017
May 3, 2017
Mount Russell – Northeast Couloir
I haven't skied anything remotely like this since Mount Muir six years ago. This is normally just a giant cliff face. When we crested Russell-Carillon Col and saw it was covered (more)
May 2, 2017
Mount Carillon — Southeast Face
Mount Carillon's southeast face was supposed to be just an incidental snowfield en route to California fourteener Mount Russell, but instead it turned out to be 2000+ vertical (more)
April 27, 2017
Skiing The Thumb
A few quick notes: jeez, the wind was bad on this one, but the trip itself was great. This is a new format designed to better feature my photography. Yes, I know a lot is broken (more)
April 24, 2017
What’s Going On Out There?
Yesterday I and two partners climbed and skied The Thumb from the Birch Creek trailhead, marking my first 7000-vertical-foot Eastern Sierra day since 2011—and my first (more)
April 15, 2017
The Air Is Alive With Snow
I ski for many reasons, but for a sunny Southern California resident days like this are a rare treat indeed. Mammoth's record-setting 2017 winter continued this past spring break (more)
March 25, 2017
Scarpa F1 Review
Maybe Scarpa's F1 doesn't quite fit into the "ultralight" Alpine Touring ski boot category, but at just less than five and a half pounds per pair, it's very, very (more)
March 20, 2017
Scouting Folly
What do you do when the mountain says, 'I want to hurt you'? That was the question this past weekend, when Al and I scouted Folly Peak, for a planned but aborted ski descent of (more)
March 16, 2017
Pieps Micro Review
With its new Micro avalanche beacon, Pieps has managed an impressive feat: they have added a genuine innovation to what would otherwise seem to be a fully-mature technology (more)
March 13, 2017
Go West, Young Man
You have seen it, have you not? Of course you have—it is the great White Whale of Southern California Skiing. Indeed, people across the world have seen it, via iconic (more)
March 11, 2017
Sugarloaf aka The Bump
I am pleased at long last to announce success in my longtime quest to climb and ski Big Bear's Sugarloaf Mountain. Sadly and contrary to expectation, this one turns out to be a (more)
