With the road open all the way to Horseshoe Lake, access is ridiculously easy—a half-mile on-trail approach to McLeod Lake, where we found skinable snow just above the south shore.

Hollywood Chute is prominently visible from atop Mammoth Mountain and for that reason certainly qualifies as a local standout.

It’s also in easy range of Red Cone Bowl, one of the Crest’s most popular ski destinations.

The chute itself is short and not too steep. We comfortably climbed it in soft snow without axe or crampons; with ice, a fall would be nasty but not necessarily fatal.

So I’d put this in the good “starter crest options” category.

Notable also for me was a distinct lack of bullshittyness up and down. Easy to get to, easy to ski, easy to get back. It’s a little more complicated if you try to hit the chute straight from Horseshoe Lake, so I guess pick that approach if you need a little more adventure?

Atop the Crest you get gorgeous views of the Lakes Basin and the backside of Mammoth Mountain. For the chute proper, the angle stays within 35-40 degrees and that plus relative protection from sun and wind meant surface texture was not a problem for us.

Good clean fun!

I’m still working out how best to translate this, but I think I finally understand one of the great mysteries of the classic French Virage Sauté-Pédale (Pedal-Hop turn):

“Do you lean forward or backward??”

Answer: Yes.

In the photo above I’ve drawn two arrows. Both arrows should be visualized as skewing slightly in the z-axis, meaning they point slightly toward you, the viewer.

The arrows hint at the movement of my hips—forward and upward—and my upper body/shoulders—downward and backward. This simultaneous contrapuntal motion happens because the turn’s rotation occurs along an angled rather than vertical axis.

If you’ve been struggling with this, it’s probably because you’re trying to rotate around a vertical axis—which is totally understandable given the realities of gravity. The problem, of course, is that just doesn’t work on a 45-degree slope.

So yes, a forward motion and a backward motion is involved, at the same time, as a direct consequence of getting the turn’s rotational and angular challenges to play nicely with human anatomy.

Once you know what to look for, you’ll easily identify this “angular leap” in the technique of O.G. steep-skiing masters like Patrick Vallencant and Anselme Baud and also in the turns of present-day specialists like Vivian Bruchez and Aurelian Lardy.

I’ll try to do a better job explaining this in further posts downstream, probably after more time on my summer Arizona vacation ramp, and definitely with the help of some 60 fps video for demonstration purposes. By the way: Mammoth has committed to running the lifts through at least June 7, so you still have time to get out there and try it yourself.

I purchased the Pierra Menta with a very specific spring-skiing job in mind: long, hideous, abominably-dry approaches where I’d be forced to endlessly carry all my gear on my back to reach snow.

The Mentas are Dynastar’s skimo race planks. They are built to be as light as humanly possible while still maintaining enough downhill performance to get you to the finish line and of course the podium.

I became interested in them because they have a reputation, in skimo circles, as a ski that skis unusually well for its weight. How good a ride do they truly offer? Well, there was only one way to find out. I bought a pair and mounted them up.

I skied them, briefly, at Lizard Head Pass two months ago, but that was on foreign snow in far-from-ideal conditions, and while my initial impression was mixed, I didn’t feel it was a fair enough test to come to any definitive conclusions.

But Gorgonio with Al two weeks ago was a different story: this was exactly the test I was looking for, and I got exactly the information I needed.

The good: these are climbing demons. If you are coming from “normal” touring skis, when you put the Pierra Mentas on your feet you will climb higher, faster, and much, much easier than you ever have before.

Starting from a lazy transition, I took in Al’s position a hundred or so yards above me with a predatory eye and hunted him down like a speedsuit-wearing cheetah stalking an aging three-toed sloth with a dodgy back and a touch of the vapors.

I actually felt a brief twinge of guilt when I passed him. Then I grinned and kept going.

Oh, the Pierra Mentas are a dream going uphill. My 160cm Mentas mounted with ATK Haute Routes weigh a preposterous four pounds two ounces per pair.

Per pair!

For contrast, my 170cm Blizzard Zero G 95’s with ATK Raider 13’s weigh seven pounds, zero point seven ounces—almost exactly three pounds heavier. Even that understates the actual system difference: because the Pierra Mentas have a 65mm waist, your climbing skins are tiny, also. Additional weight savings: 7.7 ounces (Pomoca Race Pro, pair) versus 16.3 ounces for the Zero G’s.

On your feet, the difference going uphill is huge. Like, big enough that you could probably make a pleasurable sport of just strapping them on and only going uphill.

But alas, as mentioned, the Pierra Mentas invert the usual asymmetry. As I neared Gorgonio’s summit ridge, I found myself experiencing a most unusual and decidedly unwelcome sensation: I realized I was dreading the thought of having to ski back down.

The problem was not the snow. The snow was fine. The problem was not the width: I can ski a 65mm waist and have plenty of fun. The problem is the compromises involved in getting the PM’s weight down around three pounds per pair simply take the joy right out of actually skiing them.

Edge grip is credible, even on firm snow. But the moment you try to use the front half of the ski, you overpower them. The tips distort, the entire ski starts wobbling, and you retreat to your heels, which creates this sort of “A-ha!” moment where you suddenly realize exactly why skimo racers look the way they do when they’re on the downhill portion of the course.

But what about the weight savings on those long savage approaches?

Here I discovered something interesting: saving three pounds on your feet matters a lot. Saving three pounds on your back is much less important.

The Gorgonio grind nuked me just like it always does, and yes the lighter Pierra Mentas made a difference during the hiking portion of the day, but not as much as I had hoped. So for me the tradeoff isn’t worth it. You still suffer on the approach, and in the process, you lose the one thing that truly matters: the actual skiing part.

Now: that the Pierra Mentas are not right for me does not mean they can’t be right for you, and I do not want in any way to suggest they are not outstanding when used as their designers intended.

Please, do not send me angry emails telling me the PM’s are a racing ski, not a touring ski: I know. My goal was to determine whether or not they might be suitable for a specific niche application: SoCal spring deathmarch skiing.

Sadly, the answer appears to be “no.”

That said, I still believe in the mission. There are other skis out there that are lighter than the Zero G’s but not as spindly-noodly as the Pierra Mentas, including the Black Crows Mentis Freebird, and Dynastar’s M-Vertical (currently only available in Europe).

I’ll keep looking.

In any case, I have definitely refreshed my memory!

Al and I Gorgonioed yesterday, starting at the South Fork trailhead off Jenks Lake Road, and grinding it all the way on foot to about the 9500′ mark, where we at last encountered a quite snowy mountain and, all things considered, surprisingly good skiing.

North aspects have plenty of smooth to lightly-textured snow right now, and should continue to be skiable for at least another few weeks. As always with SoCal skiing, watch for ice/firmness up high. Weather was cool and windy for us, so we topped out at 11K, preferring not to deal with the crunchiness higher up.

We skied what I’ll call Gorgonio’s main north couloir—that’s due east of the Big Draw. Working sunny aspects, we found good corn skiing mixed with some firm areas, and also the consolidating remains of fresh snowfall from the most recent storm.

Jepson looks very tempting right now, but it’s another dry mile over rough ground to get there, which is asking a lot.

There’s no question the Gorgonio region is special, and with the death of Highway 2 and continued agency bullshit regarding winter access to Mount Baldy, Gorgonio increasingly looks like our best option for interesting & viable SoCal backcountry skiing.

But the approach is savage.

I believe it’s possible to bike a fire road from Jenks Lake road to Poopout Hill, which would help. I’ll probably try that next time, as I’ve pretty much aged-out of the walkathon. The hike down really does become an exercise in pain tolerance, which is a shame, because the area otherwise offers some of SoCal’s very best touring.

Because so many western resorts have had such a poor snow year, Mammoth has apparently been getting a lot of visitors who don’t usually ski here. How much exactly that is true rather than mere anecdote, I can’t say, but the place has felt different this year, particularly in terms of crowding and crowd flow.

With Easter behind us, perhaps people will shift to golf and mountain bikes—or perhaps not. Mammoth, with its unique upper mountain (steep, north-facing, tons of snow), is going to be in the game for a while yet, so it will continue to draw skiers who aren’t ready to give up on the season.

I tend to think Mammoth is a terrible resort for your garden-variety skier. Such skiers are, in my opinion, far better served by the terrain and modes-of-operation of the Colorado ski industry (and for that matter, Colorado’s typically non-savage winter weather).

But Mammoth is special indeed for those who like their lift-served angles sharp—unmatched, I’d say, and especially so for t-shirt extremists like myself who reject the notion that steep skiing and summer can’t be friends.

When the whole mountain is open, tribes can sort at least somewhat gracefully into east/west upper/lower divisions; when things begin to compress, as they are now, things do get a bit sticky.

In terms of variable conditions, this past Easter week at Mammoth was a doozy: ice, ice, baby, plus a winter freshening of fluff that accumulated here-and-there in pockets and offered really good skiing in between scary skitters.

The hardness plus the crowds made for quite a combination, but I can at least report that the upper mountain is currently stacked. In years past I would have confidently predicted they’d easily make it to their Memorial Day closing. This year, I’ll just say, baring any more big surprises, they should be okay.

We skied this right from the summit, descending the peak’s NE couloir into Lena Basin. And the experience was… interesting.

For me the most striking part of the day was standing on Silver’s summit looking down at tiny Ophir, pop ~150, some 3700 vertical feet below. Ophir, Colorado, is a town with a suspiciously-missing middle.

This is apparently the result of a series of large 20th-century avalanches which over the years not-so-gently encouraged residents to divide the town into east and west-Ophir corridors.

The backcountry terrain surrounding Ophir (and Telluride) is stunning, but as the town’s geography demonstrates, this is not a benign snowpack. The San Juans deserve every bit of their notoriety.

Which makes me wonder: how do the locals operate? What models do they use? Knowing virtually every aspect will feature a shallow snowpack undermined by depth hoar virtually all season long, what does the decision tree look like?

I have my own theories, of course, but I’d love to go out there with a long-timer and watch how they approach it. If you’re interested in studying avalanches, the San Juans are certainly very fertile ground.

For us, the most dangerous part of the day was probably descending the short, steep SE entrance to Silver’s main north chute—it was getting soft in there, thanks to record-high temps, so presumably there was wet-slab avalanche potential.

On the way back, we veered onto legitimately south and west-ish aspects, and those did indeed occasionally collapse beneath us. The angle was shallow, so there wasn’t much potential, but we did kick loose a tiny climax slide. As I say: interesting!

This is Mount Emma, 13,581′ high, one of Colorado’s “Bicentennial” peaks—#197 or #194 depending on your prominence preferences—possibly named after Emma Woodruff, whose husband Ferdinand Hayden surveyed the San Juan Mountains for the USGS in the 1870’s (hat tip: “turn off your javascript before visiting” summitpost).

Thanks to many, many years spent in the San G’s and the Sierra, I have a lot of confidence in my wet-snow assessment skills, but when it comes to continental snowpacks with ubiquitous persistent rotten layers at ground, I am but a learner.

This year’s terrible winter in southwest Colorado paradoxically allowed me to jump on a snowpack I felt more or less familiar with—at least on sunny aspects—and, for the first time, explore some bona-fide big lines in the San Juan backcountry.

I like to imagine none of the locals would ever climb this far to get to snow. You’re too picky! My advantage is I have much, much lower standards than you.

Yes, I wish the wind had been a tad less psycho so those south aspects would have softened a bit, but in hindsight, the wind kept things squeaky-clean on the stability front, allowing us to occasionally wander off-course without compromising timing.

Emma is one of the area’s giants—a big peak with a gorgeous south/southeast bowl, prominently visible from the top of Chair 9. The mountain rises directly over the town of Telluride, and is easily accessible from the center of town via the not-messing-around Liberty Bell Trail.

But for the wind I think we could have skied Emma from very near her summit; as it was, we topped out about 100 vertical feet below, and skied what I’m calling Emma’s southeast couloir—a slightly west-facing entry into the main south drainage. Enjoy the views!

I’d been trying to keep track of how much Tylenol and Advil I’d been taking—writing it down—but I’d given up. I didn’t want to know how far beyond the 24-hour limit I was. All I knew was I needed more.

Technically, it was a new day. So I turned on the light and grabbed both bottles.

I was in Flagstaff, at my parents’ house, a stopover on the way home from seven days of skiing in Telluride. The pain began three days earlier—a modest ache in my lower front teeth that vanished after a few Advil.

But things escalated quickly. Now it was the middle of the night, early Monday morning, and I had a choice to make. I figured I could sit for eight hours in an out-of-state ER waiting room or about the same in my car.

I chose the car.

Driving through the night wasn’t a problem. The pain kept me awake. Every two hours, when I began fidgeting and the pain grew white-hot, I took more Tylenol and Advil.

It felt unreal. Surreal, watching the freeway unfold in my headlights, hour after hour. Visions of 2020 danced in my head. A nightmarish time, old ghosts racing through the darkness beside me.

But the blackness also reminded me of skinning in the dark. That sensation of being enclosed. The headlamp’s cone a pocket of light in a sea of darkness; no sound but your own breathing and the waiting, waiting for the sun to come and heal the land.

Mile after mile after mile.

At the California border I felt something new: a hard painful lump on my chin, a strange hotness spreading into my chest and throat.

Infection.

I’d been convinced the pain was my fault—that I’d been clenching my teeth somehow or scraping them too vigorously. That I’d damaged them. But no: what I had instead was a death sentence.

For most of human history.

I thought of all those countless people before me who’d felt exactly what I felt. The initial something’s-a-bit-off. Then the ache. The white-hot. The swelling. Temporarily, there in the darkness, we occupied the same space.

In a few short hours, our trajectories would diverge dramatically. Mine would lead to 30 unpleasant minutes in an endondontist’s chair, plus a short run of antibiotics. Theirs—some of them my ancestors—to an early grave.

In Flagstaff, my mom walked into the living room as I was moving skis to my car. For a moment I was a teenager again. She’d caught me—one last time—sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night.

But no: she was just lost; looking for the bathroom.

“Did I wake you?” she asked, worried she’d disturbed me.

I assured her she hadn’t.

I took her hand, startled, as always, by how bent and tiny she was. As I led her to the bathroom I caught my dad’s eyes. He was awake, watching us. He looked exhausted, haunted. I understood completely.

Back in the car, staring at the flowing ribbon of I-40’s pavement, I thought of that moment, of my mother, the bony feel of her hand. I thought of my wife, full and vibrant.

It struck me, out there in the darkness, that my life was perfect exactly as it was. Even the white-hot couldn’t hide my gratitude. Someday, I’d be a witness, like my dad, or a traveler, like my mom, on that final journey to shadow.

But not today.

If that’s not enough velocity for you, Angeles National Forest officials have apparently decided to terminate winter mountaineering on Mount Baldy. Because. The good news, such as it is, is that they did not close the entire forest (though given their stated rationale, that would seem to be the logical endpoint).

On the climate front, extremes are not a local phenomenon. Extreme weather—and extremely rapid weather shifts—are happening globally with what seems to be ever-increasing frequency. Not since the great drought years of the 2010’s (and perhaps not even then) has the future of North American skiing looked so tenuous.

And even this just scratches the surface. Right now, gigantic technological shifts are happening. Take note of the newly-rebranded U.S. Department of War(!), which just declared war on an American company—Anthropic, creator of Claude—in addition, of course, to removing Venezuela’s and now Iran’s leadership.

It’s a lot to process. What I see is a world that is rapidly changing in ways that cannot be reversed. Rather than exhausting ourselves trying to roll back time (and however much we may wish we could go back), I guess we have to find a way to adjust to this ever-evolving planet of ours—and continue to try to shape its path forward, as best we can.

There’s really no alternative.

Skiing Williamson got me interested in other ridge descents into the high desert, and one stood clearly above all the rest: Pleasant View Ridge, which is not just one of longest and most aesthetic ridges in the entire range—it also sits at plausibly-skiable elevations.

PVR extends for over six wonderfully winding miles, rising from the south end of Antelope Valley, elevation 4250′, to a high alpine peaklet around 7980′, and eventually concluding (arguably?) at Will Thrall Peak, elevation 7845′, which is just west of Burkhart Saddle.

In addition to the massive distance and vertical, the main challenge is snow—catching the ridge in skiable condition.

For the past two years, every time I drove south through Antelope Valley, coming home from Mammoth, I looked longingly at Pleasant View Ridge, thinking surely, someday, if I could just be patient, the right storm would eventually come.

Last week the weather window finally cracked open. On Saturday I parked at the base of the ridge, put skis on my back, and started hiking up.

The ridge had snow along almost its entire length, with coverage dropping as low as 5000 feet or so. Overall, I found the ridge surprisingly gentle: mostly not too steep, often soft and sandy, and remarkably free of the usual bushwhacking challenges (with one major caveat*).

I made quick time ascending the lower part of the ridge, then enjoyed a long and airy traverse all the way to Will Thrall peak. I’d wanted to continue on to Pallett mountain, but the day was getting long and I was getting tired, so I climbed back to the ridge’s apex and put on my skis.

The descent was spectacular. The ridge just goes and goes and goes—and the views are indeed pleasant. The terrain is relentlessly interesting, varied, and non-technical. I rank this easily among the most wonderful, serendipitous, sublime things I’ve ever done on skis.

Absolutely a personal high point for me.

*Warning: the lower part of the ridge is absolutely covered in Poodle Dog Bush, which is a toxic plant whose resin triggers severe skin reactions on contact. I’d been happily tromping through it for hours when I belatedly recognized it. As of now, 72 hours later, I feel “prickly” but haven’t seen any blistering. Oh well—that’s SoCal ski mountaineering for you.