mt. langley
1/22/03
i
got an email from eric on tuesday mentioning that he had never done a
14,000 ft peak and having been recently laid off, it was the perfect time.
three days later we were motoring towards the easterns sierras and mt.
langley, the southern most 14er in the lower 48.
research showed that, like whitney, it was doable in one day but just barely. arriving that night under a full moon, we were elated to find that the road was snowless all the way to the trailhead.
early the next day, we discovered that the lack of snow wasn't such a great thing. we had counted on a deep snowpack to cover up the dense brush which protected the approach to the upper basin. instead we found a 2" crust on top of 18" of sugar snow on top of 2-3' of manzanita bushes. when we broke through the crust we had zero traction as the granular snow shifted and settled. when we broke through all the way, we post-holed to mid-thigh and snagged our snowshoes on the brush below.
seven
hours and not nearly enough vertical feet later, we arrived in the upper
basin in sight of what we thought would be the day's biggest obstacle
- the couloir. unfortunately, it was close to 3pm and time was up. we
spent a few minutes in awe of the dolomite spires and steep gullies and
chutes and transitioned into our snowboards for the descent.
to say the descent was epic would be an overstatement. it wasn't good by traditional measure - no powder, no windpack - and it wasn't outright abysmal but somewhere in between. it was more or less one hour of descending through dense brush on icy, crusty, spring conditions marked by rocks covered in 1" of snow and manzanita bushes.
the highlight was riding some narrow single track trail toward the end. rocky, icy, rutted, overgrown, banked and finally giving out to double-track mixed with dirt. what a hoot. we're already planning our next assault on the eastern sierras.
Video:
Here
Photos:
Posted
to OFoto
Guides: Eric picked up a great book on ski/snowboard mountaineering in the eastern sierras. It's published by falcon press but I couldn't find it while doing a quick websearch.