Never heard of skhiking?

Where's the snow? Leader Mark Mitchell, center, and participants explore Onion Valley on skis -- and on foot. Credit: Mark Mitchell

Angeles Chapter leader Mark Mitchel was determined to go on a March 28-29 ski outing to Onion Valley, a gorgeous spot in the Eastern Sierra that should have been under snow. But it wasn't, which led to a kind of "skhiking" vacation.

Did somebody say there's a drought in California? Well, we Orange County Sierra Singles back-country skiers don't care! Only too aware that we might be deliriously optimistic quixotic windmill-chasers, a small band of us kept our end-of-March date to explore the Eastern Sierra above Onion Valley on skis.

The plan was to use the Mt. Williamson Motel in Independence, Calif., as our base from which to ski in the normally snowy spring vales below Kearsarge Pass. Given this year's low precipitation and several weeks of above average heat, we suspected we might have to start each day hiking and we came prepared to do so. Louisa brought videocameras with the idea of documenting skiing in the drought.

Last year, even though it was a record dry year, there was sufficient snow here in the first weekend of April for enjoyable skiing, particularly on north-facing slopes. So studying a topo made me think there just might be skiable terrain on the north-facing slopes on the trail to the Golden Trout Lakes. The idea was a leap of fancy, since this area is not visible from the trailhead. But the north-facing Robinson Lake drainage had plenty of snow visible at equivalent heights, so it seemed worth a try.  

With skis on their backs

And so Saturday saw us hoisting our skis and ski boots onto our packs, climbing the trail through Jeffrey Pines, rock fields, and by a waterfall before rounding the bend for our first view of those theoretically snowy north slopes. In the foreground there were only patches of snow, but we could see broader coverage ahead. However, it turned out the patches of white stuff were not easy going. No, we had entered post-hole purgatory. We persevered for a ways, but were approaching my midafternoon turn-around time.  

Most of us bailed, but Scot went for it. He climbed another couple hundred feet to reach a steeper angled alluvial flow covered with continuous snow. Louisa scrambled to position her camera to document the highlight of the day. Scot removed his skins and managed to carve a few turns! That was it. Then we returned to the trailhead - six hikers and one (albeit brief) skier. Notwithstanding the non-snow, all agreed that the day was still a good one. Who can complain about being in temperate weather at 10,000 feet in our fair Sierra? Dinner that night at the Still Life Cafe was delicious, but took almost as long as our hike.

Trying again, with new obstacles
 

Is this what skhiking is all about? Snow was patchy in places, and refrozen in others. Credit: Courtesy Mark Mitchell

Sunday we ski-optimists went up the more promising Robinson Lake trail. We only had to climb about 500 feet before we found we could put on skis and skins and ascend on snow. Of course the snow wasn't everywhere. As a matter of fact, it was barely the width of our skis in a few spots and then totally ran out in a few others. We were a bit apprehensive about what it would be like to ski down this stuff, but pleased that it mainly held out all the way to the shores of Robinson Lake where we paused for lunch.

After lunch we continued up towards the valley northwest of University Peak. We reached our turn-around time around 2,200 feet above our starting point. And good thing we turned around when we did. The snow at our high point had small proto-suncup vertical ridges and the occasional just-below-the-surface rocks to tickle the bottoms of our skis. Needless to say, we didn't race down on this. Fortunately, these conditions lasted, at most, a couple hundred feet of vertical drop before we hit better snow and skied a few care-free turns.

But then began the real challenge. We started to experience snow like I've never seen before. Just standing in place, a 6 foot diameter area would suddenly sink by as much as 4 inches. I surmised that the snow may have melted out and refrozen successive times, leaving air pockets under several layers of snow.

If I encountered these conditions in deeper snow, I'd have been worried about avalanches, but that was not this day's risk. Instead, the problem was post-holing with one's skis. We'd be skiing sort-of-OK on the surface of the snow, and then suddenly drop down to knee or thigh-deep and have to climb back out of a hole. There were also the assorted trees, shrubs, and boulders to ski around. And sometimes, through. After skiing through one patch of willow branches, Lisa quipped, "Where there's a willow, there's a way!"

It's still beautiful, right?

So maybe this wasn't truly a ski outing. Perhaps it should have been called bush ski-whacking or skhiking. Whatever you’d call it, it wasn't fast, and it was, frankly, tiring. Strangely for skiers, we were actually happy when we again found plain old dirt to walk on. We didn't reach our cars ’til turn-of-dark.

Such is fate for us drought-be-damned ski diehards. The views were spectacular, the work-out great.  Louisa got plenty of material for her documentary.  But, even for us, having given it a go, we concurred that skhiking was a case of been there, done that, and not again, thank you.