Lovers Leap 3/06

In 05-06, I started working at Sierra At Tahoe on patrol. The winter started slow with lots of rain, not much snow, and warm temps. The season fully turned around in March, with snow falling everyday but 2 in the month.

I left the Sierra boundary one day and headed west bound for the popular climbing area Lovers Leap.

The snowpack was 2.5 to 3 meters deep, and I remember exhaustively breaking trail through knee deep snow, even with the fat skis of a splitboard. I rode the west facing wind lipped terrain off West Bowl, crossed the creek, and made a long traverse up to the next ridge.
I found some ghosts and hoodoos in the hemlock forest.
My second descent was down this old tree cut path, which actually was the old Sierra Ski Ranch back in the day. Like the present day Sierra, this place had no shortage of pillow lines.

The thick forest made the routefinding a trick, but eventually I popped out at the top of Lovers Leap. Looking north at Horsetail Falls and Desolation Wilderness.
Incredible exposure on this very aesthetic line combined with California sun and warmth, with excellent snow made for some awesome riding. Lovers Leap is a granite batholith, a dome of exfoliated rock. Makes me want to ski all of the granite domes in this state.

Heres the first part of the descent, on the side of a 600 ft. cliff where the ski base jump contest takes place
The second pitch and the steepest, is known as the West Wall.
From the bottom of the West Wall, its a quick skin up to the top of Hogs Back.
These were some excellent turns . I waded through the upper South Fork of the American River because there were no snow bridges, and proceeded to the highway for a hitchike back to Sierra. Wet, muddy, and smelly, I was picked up by a father and son crew with a clean rental sedan. They were nice, and I felt bad for them to have to smell me.
They dropped me off at the junction of the highwway and Sierra At Tahoe Rd., then picked up by a shuttle cruising by less than a minute later.

I would've had a long walk up the road, but lucky for me some fool followed my tracks out from west bowl, and ended up swimming in the deep powder, lost in Sayles Canyon. Two of my fellow patrollers Dan and kiwi Johnny Rotten were sent on a search for him. Ended up the guy broke into a cabin less than 1/8 of a mile from the highway to "warm up". They found him alive and well, and called for a pickup, which is where it all comes together. We all celebrated our very different adventures together at the bar, the lost guy bought patrol a number of rounds...