The light from my headlamp illuminates the numbers on my watch. 12:15 am Saturday morning. The darkness is striking, no moon, no stars, the crowns of the trees enclose any light. I look ahead and see the elliptical torch beams of the two headlamps ahead of me. Pole, pole and slide, the only sound is the familiar high pitch zip of the skins sliding forward on dirty snow. Hip flexors are really hurting now, especially on the right side as we skirt the west slope and slide around to the Silliman Creek drainage and up to camp. I stop and lean on the end of my poles, tired and aching.This trek began at seven p.m. with seven blokes, 35 minutes of walking led us to the snow where we donned our skins and began the march. Smiling faces, fresh legs and loads of food as we headed out from Lodgepole.
I was initially thinking a few hours. A few turned into six and we arrived at the open area below the west slope leading up to Silliman Lake after 1:15 am. It was not a minute to soon as backs ached and feet hurt. The last hour involved taking off the skis numerous times and hiking over pare patches, over rocks and up snow slopes to steep to skin. Each time taking off my skis involved the full effort of bending over and undoing the bindings, reaching back and flicking the cable off the back of my boot. Stand up breathing heavy. Why was I doing this to myself? Why did we embark on this death march?
We are farmers in the field, seeking the perfect crop.
Cinco-de-mayo weekend has come to be known as a time for reaping the harvest. The Sierra Nevada Mountain range produces a special crop of delicious fruit. Succulent nectar of the Gods waiting to be harvested by those willing to work to attain the place where the seeds take hold. The bounty finds refuge high up in the north facing bowls of the high Sierra where it grows all winter condensing and firming in the warm late winter and early spring sun.
The fruit we seek is shinny white alpine corn. So good it makes the heart leap with the anticipation of every bite into its carve-able meat. You can't eat this wonderful goodness, but Man and Woman have been know to feast on its pleasure until their leg muscles ache and their hearts burst with joy.
You see, the Sierra produces a special type of snow. Corn Snow, that is so tasty and carvable it is literally impossible to make bad turns. Winter snows condense to a firm base that freezes to a hard pack at night. The top layers are melted during the day by the warm spring sun and then refreeze at night. The freeze thaw action produces hard little pellets of ice that are held together by a layer of water. Surface tension provides the magic glue.
When harvested at just the right time this corn yields two to five inches of pure shread-able bliss. But you have to hit it right in the mid to late morning because if you wait to long or pick to early you either get a thick slushy mess or hard pack ice that will chatter the teeth. Mid to late morning is the best pickins depending on slope exposure and cloud cover.
But reaping this harvest is not easy and one must grunt and slog endless hours to reach the corn camp. The north bowl of Mount Silliman awaited us. Visions of smooth corn snow, and arching turns filter through the mind. Lead with the pole plant and transition to the next edge. The mechanics go through the mind and I envision the perfect fall line.
We reached camp at 1:30 am Saturday morning. Tired, dig out a flat spot, lay down the sleeping pad and float off into space. Wake up at dawn with a fresh layer of frost coating my bivy and gear. 22 degrees, not too cold. The others lounge in bed until 8 when the sun hits our camp, but I was to interested in where we were as we crawled in here in complete darkness.
Silliman creek cascades down snow covered granite slabs. The water slides down the face onto a ledge and then disappears, only to reappear 50 feet to left. The water flows down more exposed rock and then vanishes under the snow and meanders invisible to the eye through the snow covered meadow.
Shear granite monolithic faces of rock shoot up above us as the ridge line on both sides of our camp extend to the sky. These are only minor ridge lines climbing up to Silliman proper. These smaller formations elude to the majesty that climbs two thousand feet above us and around the corner.
It get itchy waiting around for the others to rise and get ready, thinking of what lay ahead in today's adventure. Couple of cups of French Roast and some breakfast and before you know it I am ready to roll.
The objective is the north bowl just west of Mt. Silliman. We climb over a small ridge and onto northwest facing slopes and climb up towards the tree line. As we travel the views open to panoramic vistas and huge open bowls of hard packed spring snow. After one and a half hours of climbing we crest a ridge and look across to the shear west face of Silliman. Orange patina cover exposed granite as Silliman rises before us. The peak sloping off gently to the south as the ridge gives way to a small shoot on the ridge line a few hundred feet down from the summit.
That looks like a good place to ski! We take a short break and wait for the others to reach our vantage point. Once together we traverse a steep slope and climb up to the bottom of the little notch. We take off our skis and begin to kick steps into the hard pack and ascend into the cleft. The snow is firm, but in no time will give way to fantastic corn skiing. We reach the steeper upper shoot and finding solid footing is becoming difficult. Beers and Hog traverse under a band of small rocks. I am thinking this is getting a little dicy, but to fall here would just mean a long slide with the work to gain this height wasted.
Hog looks a little sketched and says, "man this is getting a little sketchy."
Beers shrugs him off and says, "Come on, its cool."
Just then Beers slips and loses a ski. He grabs onto the melt edge just below the rock and rolls onto his back to catch his other one before it too starts heading down the mountain. Luckily Hern Dog is traversing just below and grabs the ski just as it starts to pick up speed. I hold back my laughter as Beers rolls back over onto his feet, down climbs the 15 feet and begins back up again. A few minutes later we reach the top of the notch.
From this vantage point we can see down into the south western basin below Silliman containing Silliman Lake. Over the next ridge is the Tablelands, Skiers Alta, and Tokapah falls and the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River. More importantly the only way to go from here on snow is down. Excitement builds as we prepare to descend. After Friday night's trudge and the two hours to climb here we finally get to take the skins off and drop it. The shoot is tight for about three turns then opens up and rolls into the steeper pitch before fully opening up to a larger bowl that continues down to the Little Lakes Basin.Beers is the first to drop in, cuts two turns then disappears over the edge. All I hear is hooping and hollering from the boys below as he carves one turn after another. Finally he appears again on the lower slopes below. After waiting patiently for Hog, it is Slater's turn. He is relatively new to tele skiing coming from a snowboard background.
Slater realizes he needs to switch his binding into a stiffer position. Those hammerhead bindings have all sorts of doohickeys and bells and whistles. I remember when bindings were a metal plate with a wire around the back and a couple of springs, with small little pieces of steel holding the toe in place. Remember those Black Diamond bindings. Before that we had three pins. Remember those? It always amazes me that these big plastic boots still have the pinholes in the toe. Leather boots and skinny skis, remember those? EC 90’s baby….ripping. Well, Slater had to get out his tool to move the adjustment, and I couldn’t wait for that so I dropped in.
One of the moments I like the most about skiing, but backcountry skiing more so, is those few seconds before gravity takes hold and friction is minimized. Standing on the top, poles strapped to your wrist, cast your eyes to the horizon and look at all the surrounding peaks. Standing in harmony with the place. Breathe deep, focus on the movements and hope that muscle memory takes hold and the subconscious mind controls all motion. Confidence must take control, any doubt and you blow the first turn. Flow, rhythm, speed, pattern, and power.
Drop in and I gain the fall line, plant the pole and bust into the first turn. One after another the subconscious motion takes control. Steep at first, bang…. bang…. bang…. and as the slope mellows the skis gain speed and then your railing it down the fall line. The body is a pure harmony of technology, nature, and dynamics. The complex algorithms of muscle movement and physics come to a crescendo and time slows as potential energy is used at a rapid pace. Silence as complete focus takes over, then the world comes back to you and you’re at the bottom and sound is again apparent. Look up and see where you came from, what took so long to get up once again is above you in a few moments of harmonic bliss.
We regroup and look down at the Little Lakes basin below. A natural half pipe of snow drains the upper bowl and looks like a playground for the off piste enthusiast. Time for big arcs and high speed turns up the side of the gully. The roller coaster ride takes us down to the lake. One snow-less large rock is our lunch spot. The sun reflects from all sides and the solar radiation warm us to the core.
Resting is great, but I can’t wait to begin ascending again as the upper ridge awaits us. A triangular shaped snowfield extending up to an unnamed 10,900-foot peak. After skiing as far as we could go we begin kicking steps just east of the exposed ridge line. Footing is fairly easy and we plod up to lofty heights. Higher and higher we ascend, Hog Man in tow with Hern Dog behind him. Beers decides to climb the ridge proper.
I get within 50 feet of the summit and begin busting through to my lower thigh. I have visions of busting through and sliding with a huge slab of snow 800 feet to the bottom of the bowl. I know those fears were unfounded, but I promised Tracy I wasn’t going to do anything stupid so I listened to my intuition and stopped here. Beers pressed on and made it to the top. From this angle I should be able to get some good shots.
A patch cloud cover had moved in and the sun peeked through illuminating the orange west face of Silliman. Beers traversed into the fall line and dropped in. This late in the day the snow was thick and it made skiing this steep face seem like eight inches of heavy sierra powder. Beers threw up globs of snow as he powered down the face.
It was about an eight hundred foot shot to the bottom and before you knew it he was down. Hog dropped in next a few yards below me. Then I was the only one left. I traversed out and stopped for a second. After working so hard to get here I wanted to make the best of this run. A confident first turn let to several more and I was in the flow. The muscles remember the motion and with each little pole plant and hop I was closer to the bottom. I carved the last turn arched over to the others and stopped. Now one said anything, just smiled.
We traversed over the ridge and began to make our way back down to camp. It was about two seventeen hundred vertical feet back down and we ripped high speed turns and shot through little gaps in rocky out crops. Wide open snow fields dropped us back under the tree line and we carved turns through the trees back to camp.
I was tired when we got back. Changed out of sweaty socks and shell pants and into my camp clothes. We were luck enough to have a bare patch of dirt next to our cooking rock and we built a fire. What a pleasure that was to have the fire while we sat and relived the day. I soon found out why the others packs were so heavy on the way in as the crew produced beer after beer from the hidden spaces of their Cordura. Since it was Cinco-De-Mayo weekend we made some fat burritos and T-Brown whipped up a killer avocado salsa with jalepenos. After I put three big daddies away the night grew dark and the fire cast a red glow on our faces. Caser began telling the worst possible jokes anyone could have ever heard and I knew it was time to hit it, and nestle into the 550 fill. I looked at my watch, 8:55 p.m.
The body was tired the next morning. I woke at dawn and looked to see that it was 22 degrees. Not too cold, but a heavy layer of frost coated my gear and bivy sack. We woke up and brewed some strong coffee, and made breakfast. We were going to try and access the top of Silliman from the west side, but after we made the long 2,000 foot climb up past Silliman lake we saw that the south slope leading up to the peak was dry. It didn’t really matter since there was plenty of good snow in the upper bowls to ski and from above Silliman Lake the run back to camp would be really good.
Above Silliman Lake the terrain was amazing. Orange granite with black water streaks circle the bottom of the alpine bowl. Tiny emerald blue, snow feed lakes sit calmly at the bottom constantly being fed by the relentless trickle of melting snow. Blue ice cascaded down the north bowl and flowed into Silliman Lake.
Near the summit ridge of Silliman a stand of wind blown Lodgepoles stood like sentinels guarding access to the top. At eleven thousand feet high on a Sierra peak half of the pines were completely without branches, their white bark standing in contrast to the dark green foliage of their neighbors.
Beers, Hog and I began climbing up the west bowl to gain access to the tallest shot with the best sun exposure. We climbed up and around a large rock outcrop to traverse above a 60 foot wide gap that connected the large snow field with the even larger one below. We reached a high point with a nice flat spot that was perfect for taking off skins and preparing to descend. It looked good to me, however Beers wanted to go higher to reach the tallest point on the face, a big point of snow that touched the hundred food shear face of orange granite above the west bowl.
He reached the highest point and we proceeded to watch him drop his ski down in the melt hole between the rock face and the snow field. That was almost a disaster, depending on the size of the hole, the ski could have slid down and been gone for good. Leaving Beers a long walk out with one ski strapped to his back. He climbed into the hole head first and squeezed his body twelve feet down and just grabbed the tail of his ski with his finger tips and pulled it out. Hog and I thought it was quite hilarious. He popped up again and with torn legs on his mid-weight underpants, a little token to remind him how lucky he was.
Well, we busted some turns down the shot, which was fairly good although a little sun cupped, the flat light making it more challenging than it needed to be.
We regrouped at the lunch rock, and began what was one of the best ski runs I have probably ever taken. It started out with some navigating through rock outcrops and small snow fields, down steep little pitches that shoot you up and over a snowy ridge until we reached the drop that contains Silliman Lake. We stood and looked at 1,700 vertical feet of perfect corn, rollers through rock outcrops to sweet intermediate wide open blue runs to a steep pitch about as long as the Face at Sierra Summit. It was awesome. The corn was perfect. Two inches of the little balls on top a soft packed base. This stuff is really hard to make bad turns on.
We all ripped down to the top of the steep pitch that dropped us into camp. I watched as the other carved down the face, then began my run. Made 10 to 15 turns and headed for a drop over a rock band, pointed the skis and flew off a 20 foot rock drop and landed perfectly on the other side (actually I saw the drop coming tried to stop and slid on my side over the two foot drop and crashed on the other side, but you can dream can’t you). Got up, skied the final hundred feet and slid into camp high on the amazing rush. It was the perfect ski run.
Sat for a few minutes, packed up the bags and started the two hour Gorilla ski run through the trees and back to the trail for the short hike back to the car. Once back at the car, we said our goodbyes and began the two hour drive home. I was ready to see Tracy and the Boys, but as we drove farther down the hill my heart still yearned to be up there. The call of the Sierra is an amazing thing, it never leaves you. The high alpine places and special little hideaways under the open sky. Where the wind blows cold in the summer and small patches of green grass line little mountain lakes. Cold granite on the palms of your hand the sound of wind pushing its way through pine needles.
Tall granite calls you to find serenity in its heights. It draws you in and pushes you to go higher. Many have discovered what they are made of up on high craggy ridges. The Lord speaks to you in such places, fills you with life, and shows you his glory. It will always have a place in my heart.
Thanks for Reading
Roll out to the park and take it all in. Back when the Berg was a different place. North of Herndon didn’t exist, and you rode through fields forever to get to Copper and Willow. Fruit orchards and sheep pastures. Now its houses as far as the eye can see. Back then Bubblegum was a dinky old two lane road with uneven pavement and no bike lane.
