The Hillbilly Hippies ski Basin Mountain

   Indeed, this happened several months ago in the spring, but cut me some slack--I got a new job (or 2), have an actual commute that I'm still getting used to, and am scrambling to try and fit in as much play time as possible. Being busy kind of stinks, it makes summer go by way too fast!

Basin Mountain in the early morning light, the East Couloir visible to the left side of the peak

   Kit and I had been planning all along to go down to Bishop for Mule Days over Memorial weekend, bringing dirt bikes and skis and not much of a plan aside from doing both of those things at some point figuring it out as we went along. Arriving at the Poleta Canyon OHV staging area on Friday night in the dark, we hoped to wake up and scrutinize the expansive view of the eastern Sierra from across the Owens Valley and see where decent skiing might be found. I looked through binoculars while eating breakfast the next morning, scanning Mt. Locke & Humphreys; Mt. Tom looked a little burned out and too far to hike to snow. What about Basin? Looks like the East Couloir has decent coverage and the snow doesn't start too far from the access road. We've talked about that one quite a lot and been magnetized by its commanding presence on the Bishop skyline, and it even sounded like a great idea to use dirt bikes for the approach.

Kit checking out Mt. Humphreys and the Wahoo Gullies on Mt. Locke

  Instead of riding Poleta, we decided to head across the valley and up to the Buttermilk boulders to do some approach scouting on motorcycles. While sort of a novelty, riding a dirt bike to the base of this climb seemed brilliant since we had that ability. Although Horton Lakes road (access to Basin) is drivable with a higher clearance vehicle, it sounded as though it was incredibly rough and rocky and would be slow going in the big truck, not to mention parking and turning around at the trailhead might be an issue. We found an excellent flat spot to park with the trailer and unload, then examined the map for a few minutes and took off for the Horton Lakes trailhead.
   The turn off of Buttermilk Road was easy to find and we quickly blasted up to the gate--so much more fun than creeping in the truck up a steep bumpy road. It looked like a couple hundred feet of vertical to hike to the first skin-able patches of snow, not bad at all. The lower snow field looked pretty terrible though, all covered in dirt and sticks, runnels and small suncups. In all it looked good to go, and there was still much time left in the day, so we decided to continue riding around the Buttermilk loop and do some exploration for future backcountry missions.

   The road was badly washed out just past the Horton Lakes turnoff but we were able to cross the ruts a couple of times and get beyond the worst parts. Once past there, at point where it appeared nobody had been through yet this season, we came upon a couple of creek crossings that looked a little high but we both scooted through without incident. The next turn we took followed a creek drainage toward Mt. Humphreys, which gained a ton of elevation and eventually we hit some snow patches and had to turn around. A couple of decent flat spots for camping around here, a creek, and nice views. We'll have to go back for that one.

How to ride a motorcycle with a ski mountaineering pack

   Continuing around the Buttermilk loop, we took a few more turns off the main road to explore, and then popped out back on the highway and back to the beginning of Buttermilk Road and our truck. Content with all we had seen and with a solid plan for the next day's climb, we packed up and went back down towards Bishop to take a few afternoon laps at the motocross track, before setting up camp and experimenting with the attachment of skis and boots to our packs and the whole situations's compatibility with riding a motorcycle.

   It's so hard to get out of a comfy bed early on the weekend, but the forecast was for a warm day and we didn't really want to ski glop or deal with wet slides so we rallied to get out of bed and get moving at 6. We each gulped down an egg sandwich and shouldered our awkward packs with skis, boots, poles, ice axes, etc poking out in all directions; and then, as if that wasn't enough of a challenge, threw a leg over our dirt bikes and tried to kick the starter without tipping over. Successful in that, I left camp gingerly at first and opened the throttle as I figured out the balance a little better. Once past the popular climbers' camp by the Buttermilk boulders where the road gets rough and sitting down is a terrible idea, my arms and legs were burning with the effort of hanging on and staying upright with an extra 30 pounds on my back. Horton Lakes road felt like an eternity even though we made good time up to the gate, just under half an hour. The fast way to approach, but certainly not the easiest way! My quads and triceps were already dreading the ride back down just a little bit...

  There were already several cars parked by the gate at 7am and we wondered if we had slept in just a little bit too long. Basin's East Couloir faced to the east and the rising sun was already directly upon it. Whatever. We'll just have to climb faster and catch them all. Except that there were no fresh boot tracks or skin tracks upon reaching the snow... bizarre! We eventually figured that those cars' owners must be hiking into Horton Lakes and elsewhere, because there was not another soul on Basin Mountain this day!

Snacking partway up

   The first pitch went by fairly quickly, a couple of hours or so, and we stopped for a quick snack on the saddle before continuing upward. A short traverse brought us to the base of the actual couloir and the pitch began to steepen, enough that I stopped to swap skis and poles for crampons and ice axe. Although the snow was soft and boot-able, I would rather wear than carry the extra weight, and it felt nice and secure kicking steps with sharp things on my feet and in my hand. At this point the couloir seemed endless, the top appearing just as far away from halfway up as it did from the bottom. We finally reached the giant rock in the middle where we'd agreed to stop for a snack break, and realized that the top was not far off at all.

   Maybe 20 minutes later, around 11:30 AM we reached the top of the couloir and dropped our packs, finding some comfy rocks to sit on and scarf down more food while taking a few photos of the views in all directions. The saddle atop the couloir was still probably a couple hundred feet below the true summit of 13,240 feet, but some chossy, loose rock lay between it and us, and no rope or climbing gear accompanied us. Highest skiable point, then, counts as a summit in our book!

 
 
We clicked into our skis just after noon and enjoyed some rather excellent skiing all the way down the East Couloir. Crossing the short traverse and scrambling back over the rock band took several minutes, and then we were back in our skis and hunting for the least crappy descent route down the last pitch, peppered with suncups and avalanche debris. Survival skiing at its finest--welcome to backcountry skiing!! We reached the tail end of the snow safely, following some sketchy maneuvering among giant runnels in sticky snow. The hike back down to our bikes was incredibly awkward in ski boots, but I managed to not trip over anything and tumble down the hill, all the while envious of Kit's relatively easier
walk in telemark boots...

  Back at the motorcycles, we arranged all of the skiing equipment back on our packs somewhat securely, as I faced the half hour ride back down the hill with more than a little apprehension. As it turns out, riding downhill isn't nearly as bad, and we putzed our way back down to camp, passing a couple of Jeeps crawling slowly down Horton Lakes road. We got a number of surprised looks cruising through Buttermilks camp and a few thumbs-up. The final challenge back at the truck: dismounting in such a way as to to avoid catching skis on bike and tipping over... Success! Tecates with lime all around! A 7 hour round trip from car to car, about 5,000 vertical feet of climbing and skiing, and another 2,000 of approach ride, and that classic peak was in the bag. We're off to find some delicious burgers and watch some Mule Days for the rest of the afternoon!

A horse riding in a car...always something outrageous at Mule Days!