Desolation Wilderness Tour
Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 12:06PM 
Corn o'plenty, Desolation Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, CA.Once in a while, it's nice to get out of town and travel to other ranges to be reminded just how sweet the Tetons are. My wife and I traveled to Northern California last week for both business and a holiday. I skied in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada early on the trip and we rode our bikes a lot in Sonoma County toward the end. In between was a three day stop in Carson City/Lake Tahoe to ride and ski there.
The weather was perfect, if not a little warm for skiing. Still, it just froze at night above the lake allowing me to get up into the high country behind Emerald Bay. There is an unlimited amount of skiable terrain up there. My only complaint is that most of it is pretty tame. Open bowls and shorter, steeper faces dropping from summits are the rule here. Tons of fun but I can't say I ever got scared.
I guess I'm spoiled. Fear is a short skin from the parking lot around here if that's what you're looking for. Not that steep and gnarly is the only thing that makes skiing fun. Far from it. But it's nice to have the option.
Of course, the Sierra Nevada has plenty of sickness but skiers usually head south and east for that down my Bishop. Lines there are huge and there is plenty of technical fun to be had. Tahoe seems mostly mellow although I imagine that well-traveled locals could show me things that would make me turn in and down climb.
On this day, I saw little of that but had fun anyway for about 6 hours. With all our unconsolidated snow and unsettled weather here lately, it was nice skinning around in a t-shirt and ripping multiple corn runs off the summits of several peaks. The main summit of the day was Dick's Peak. I hit several smaller peaks and ridges while circling the area.
I started my tour at the Bay View trailhead on the south end of Emerald Bay and skied out to the Eagle Falls trailhead. It was funny walking the last half mile out to the car in ski gear while passing plump, sun-burned tourists heading up the slushy trail in their Reeboks.
If you're passing through the area this time of year, the Lake Tahoe region offers lots of perfect corn skiing for a nice diversion from your journey. The views of the lake alone are worth the price of admission.
Here's another video effort showing the day's terrain.
Getting in these long efforts is allowing me to maintain an incredibly deep level of fitness I developed this winter with large training volumes. I'm probably losing some off the top end since I don't do the threshold efforts as much. That said, on the last boot pack of the day on this tour, I did 30/30s the whole way up, getting my HR up toward 160.
Later on this same road trip I spent some time riding the road bike. On my second ride of the trip and only my seventh or eighth ride of the year, I went out for 6.5 hours with significant amounts of climbing. In years past I could not conceive of riding that far even in mid season let alone at the beginning of one. But I actually felt pretty good. I certainly did not have much punch left after about 4 hours but I was still able to motor along until the end and felt fine getting off the bike.
Spring skiing is just getting going in the Tetons. There are plenty of projects at hand. More to come. - Brian
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