The Secret Mecca of Spring Skiing
After a 12 hour drive from Jackson, I met my childhood best friend Zoe in Bridgeport, CA: a one street town that is a hub for the northern end of the Eastern Sierras. Zoe is a big reason why I got into skiing in the first place (since my parents don’t ski, when Zoe and I were friends in school, Zoe’s family brought me up to Tahoe a few times to try it out. The rest is history). Our mutual love of skiing and surfing is what’s kept our friendship so strong over the years. We live in different states but we try to do at least one ski trip a year together, whether that means she comes to visit me in Jackson or we meet somewhere else in the mountain west. Over the years this tradition has led to some of the best trips I’ve ever taken, and the some of my favorite ski days. This year, my old mogul buddy and college best friend Lindsay would be joining us too. It’s always cool to have two friends from different parts of your life meet and I had no doubt they would become friends themselves.
That’s Zoe on the left, Lindsay on the right.
This was our second time meeting in Bridgeport for a spring skiing trip, and our excitement grew knowing what our week ahead would look like: camping under the stars, zipping around the valley in search for the best snow, and skiing as much as our legs could possible take.
We hit a quick dip in the local natural hot springs, set up camp, and started planning our ski objectives for the days ahead.
That guide book is the bible for this area and every time we come here we try to check off more objectives listed in the book. But the best part about skiing here is that the lines listed in the book are only the beginning. There is so much out there that isn’t written down, and to find it, you just have to get out there and explore.
We started out with a couple of smaller objectives just to assess conditions and get used to traveling in the mountains together. On our first lap we realized the corn was absolutely perfect, and we knew we were going to have an epic week ahead.
The next few days were a blur. We picked the most aesthetic couloirs we could find in the book, and stacked big days back to back to back. We spent the days hiking uphill in the sun with heavy packs sustained on gummy worms and PB&Js, and the spent the nights combing over the guide book to pick our next objective over a cup of apple cinnamon tea.
Our group travelled together great in the backcountry. As soon as one of us started getting worn out, another one of us would step up and start leading the way. We were all determined to get to the peaks but also kept things light and never hesitated to take a snack and sunscreen break when someone needed it.
We lucked out with weather and only had one down day because of high winds. It was probably a good thing we had a forced down day or we would have kept skiing ourselves into the ground
[Pro Tip: down days are inevitable on ski trips, which is why on every ski trip you should always pack a book, a board game and/or a musical instrument. on this trip I had There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascenscion by Hanif Abdurraqib, the board game Azul, and Zoe and Lindsay brought a banjo. So we had a great time on our down day]
Another stroked of luck was that Sonora Pass had just opened for the summer while we were there. This allowed us to drive up to 9,600 feet, and shuttle cars down the pass so we could ski more vert than we hiked. Some of the other drainages we skied required a lot of walking in our trail shoes before we could switch to skins, so being able to start an ascent on the snow was a welcome change.
Everyday that we skied we would run into familiar faces around the valley. Everyone in the area was doing the same thing as we were: sleeping in their cars, searching for the best corn, and planning on staying there until the snow ran out.
It’s hard to describe what a magical place the Eastern Sierras are. They’re hard to get in good conditions because by the time the roads open up often times the snow has already melted. You need a combination of a big year, a cold spring, but not too big of a year that the road crews can’t open the roads. When it all lines up, it feels like magic.
