Solo adventure on Mt. Locke (12,673ft). Bishop, CA

I have been looking at the USFS Snow Depth Map for months now and just waiting for it to go pink down on the East Side. Still waiting… So two weekends ago I decided to go give it a look for myself. I love camping down in Bishop, CA, the area has a Joshua Tree feel (without the Joshua Trees) with its big boulders and desert expanse, but more than anything, I am drawn to the massive vertical relief from the Owens Valley up to the High Sierra peaks which is hard to find anywhere else in the country. Here, the valley rests at about 4,000 feet, and the mountains rise to as high as 14,500 feet! I will never forget first setting my eyes on the East Side, the name most commonly given to the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains running north and south to the west of the Owens Valley.

For this trip, I knew that I would be skiing alone, so I wanted to be near familiar terrain, and know that the snowpack was FIRM. I also want to feel strong and empowered, to put new life into my body, and to be proud of accomplishing something hard on my own. This seemed like the perfect choice for that. It would also be my first solo peak bag with skis, so I was excited to let the day rest on my judgement alone.

I ended up getting to Bishop at about 6pm on Saturday night. I always camp at a place that me and friends have termed “The Spot,” its up near the Buttermilks but that is all I will give over. This place literally never has a person, you can sit there alone and watch the 50-100 cars leave the Buttermilks. From the campsite you can see endless ski lines. You literally open up “Skiing Californias Eastern Sierra” and right in front of you are ten+ lines from the book. The first big mountain ski mountaineer trip I did was out of here, so it will always have a fantastic place in my heart.

In this photo: Journaling, drinking a Sierra Nevada, and enjoy a fire before a cowboy camp.

It is funny camping alone. It gets quiet fast, dark early, and you’re left with your thoughts and luckily here, one massive starry sky to look at. It’s a nice balance of introspection and philosophical/planetary thought. Hippy, I know..But I love it. It’s the morning I love though. Waking up next to a campfire that you had stoked all night long until falling asleep. Just you, the dirt, sunrise, and a fresh day ahead. Mornings kick ass.

At about 8:15am I woke up after ten hours of sleeping cowboy style on the ground. I love it. Its hard to imagine at first, but its the best sleep I can get. Its an adventure alone to sleep under the stars, and to do it alone with a massive sky above is just another degree of awesomeness. But once again, I woke up late, on a day that was forecasted to be very warm, and I knew it would be a race to the summit of Locke to ski south facing snow. I hadn’t written off Piaute Crags, but I knew it would be the much bigger objective, and almost certainly require crampons and ice axe which seemed like it may be a bit out of my comfort zone/personal safety rating.

In this photo: Right to Left- Mount Tom, Basin Mountain, Mount Humphreys (in the clouds), and Mount Locke.

I got to the Bishop Creek Campground at about 9:15am and it was already about 45 degrees at 7,000ft. Last year when I took off from here in late April there was snow all the way over the gate at the campground. This year, there wasn’t snow until about a 8,000ft, and we are talking February. I got started through the campground with my skis on my pack and once again hiking in ski boots. The terrain is steep out of the campground and its really just a bunch of different game trails leading you to the top through the dense sage. The vegetation is unique though, the high desert extends all the way to about 8,500 feet here, and it was jaw dropping to see Prickly Pear cactus coming out of the snow, and to have to avoid Cat Claw and other thorny desert plants while walking in my ski boots.

Once I gained the initial ridge, I tossed my skis on and skinned though some sage and then up some steep terrain before getting myself to the familiar spot on the bench beneath the Bishop bowl. Here I would have a pretty basic skin over towards the main drainage that leads up to Paiute Crags, Mount Emerson, and Mount Locke. While the terrain was pretty basic, the first thing I noticed once onto a deeper snow pack was just how varying the snow quality was. There were isolated wind slabs, ice crust with facets underneath, ice crusts with rounds, wind scoured sestrugii, buffer board wind packed snow, velvety wind transport, and just about any other type of snow except deep pow. Yes, snow is not just snow, there are a zillion different types and qualities. All worth taking note of. Wind, a thin snow pack, and warm sun all seemed to be the main contributing factors to the snow though, and today was an example of what the south/central Sierra have been experiencing over the last month of so.

As I pressed on, I could hear the wind howling and I was hoping that as I changed aspects, the wind would die down. That didn’t happen and after a spicy downhill skin into the main drainage, I was getting smacked with 20-30mph guests that were transporting icy bits of snow, the previous days corn, straight into my face. Since I was still in a familiar place and new the weather was supposed to be clear. I continued on and took it for what it was, or seemed to be, a windy but clear day in the mountains. I could see all of my potential ski lines from here, and due to the wind and lack of snow, along with being solo, I decided I would head for the southeast face of Mount Locke, get as far as a I could safely, and then ski back the way that I came in.

I was moving slow but steady and before I knew it I was skinning up the bottom of the face and ascending to the first bench on my way up. This took a lot of zig zagging, heel kicking, skin turns, to get up and I was stoked to be to the top of this section. I was now just underneath and between two granite features that were some nice eye candy for a day that had mostly been spent looking down in order to keep my head from the wind. The wind had continued though, but the gusts seemed to be getting less frequent so I was hoping that the weak system had quickly passed through. After weaving through the rocks over the minimal snowpack, I continued to skin up the main bowl that would be my final pitch. It looked so close but in all reality I was still about a 1,000vft below the summit with the same varying snow conditions and knew that the final bit to the summit would be the most tedious.

In this photo: Looking towards Paiute Crags from the Mount Locke ascent.

I skinned for about 500 feet in the same narrow, zig zag, pattern, and then finally as the snow got firmer I stepped out of my skis and put them on my pack. I stepped off the snow and onto the scree that was to me right (east) and climbed the steep scree instead of the snow for a bit. At this point I was right above the Wahoo Gullies so it was neat to be able to see what those entries are like since I would like to ski those in the future. Hiking on the scree and big blocks turned out to be the wrong decision though, so I stepped back onto the snow and began to boot my way of the snow. Toe in, then super choked up on the ski pole, hand in. After climbing this way for a bit I realized that I should’ve just gone the full distance and put on the crampons and pulled out the ice axe. It wasn’t a make or break, but they would have been nice in the sections where I wasn’t able to punch through because the snow was so firm. Plus, as I got higher, the idea of sliding down the face for a bit rested in the back of my mind like a caution sign. I decided to continue on without transition into crampons because I figured it was equally as risky to traverse over, take off my pack, and do all the work in the wind which had kicked up again, and much stronger as I got near the summit. Finally, about 100 feet from the summit, the slope angle got a bit less steep, I knew I would summit and a nice sense of accomplishment set in. I also knew that I could ski the bowl safely, but it would take some slow skiing and cautious navigating.

In this photo: Looking at Mount Humphreys from just below the summit of Mount Locke.

I hung out a couple feet below the summit for a about five minutes, the winds would go totally calm, and then a guest of 50-65mpg would come howling over the ride top. I have never been on a summit in such strong winds and it was truly humbling. Every move I made had to be slow and deliberate. I really didn’t spend much time up here and moved down about twenty feet to start to find a spot to put my skis on. I wanted to ski from the highest point of snow but at this point the snow was super firm and with my tech binding it’s not the easiest to click in on this type of surface and at a steep angle so I decided to put my skis on while standing of the rocks and then walk out to the snow. It worked out quite well so I started skiing SW along the top for about two hundred feet or so then dropped into the bowl on a SE facing fall-line. The snow was pretty horrible so I took it slow, sliding some, hop turning some, and stopping frequently to assess the rest of the descent. It was pretty wild how hard the wind was blowing and how much snow was flying through the air from each turn I made. As I got lower the snow soften up and the wind was far less frequent. From hear the return route was pretty straight forward and not all that worthy of writing about.

In this photo: Pointing to the snow strip that led to the summit of Mount Locke.

Even with the winds, bad snow, and lack of it. I was still super stoked on summiting Mount Locke and skiing some serious vertical in the Sierra. It’s always jaw dropping to just look at the granite and the jagged peaks. Mainly, if you ask me, the best feeling of every ski trip is when you get back to the car safely. After seven hours in the mountains I did, and I was stoked to eat every last bit of food in my car as I drove back to Reno.