Thanks Steve for posting the picture for me, altho I'd prob. label it "FAILED Summit attempt"....here's a bit more beta and thanks for the interest......... Feb 9..2:00am.....my mate dropped me at the "Road Closed" sign..... Road was not passable more than a few hundred yards even with 4wd and really not worth the effort. Skinning up the road on this dark and starry night was fun and by 4am I was skiing off the main trail up into the start of the Mountaineer's Route. The North Fork Gully leading to LBSL can be difficult in winter....this time was no different for me.....three hours to climb a measly 1500 ft......the snow was deep and unconsolidated and it took a fair bit of work to get thru it even though I never came off my skis....not sure how snowshoes would go as they have less floatation and are slower......bypassed the ledges because of depth of snow on them .....headed directly up gully.... many avalanche terrain traps for the unwary and gully is prob. not best route of ascent after fresh snow, however, I worked past areas of concern and was at LBSL by 7am......daylight had caught me in the lower gully, going from black to dark grey, with the early low sun filtered by the clouds massed across the valley to the east, I knew a storm was coming and if I wanted to summit I had to hurry.....As I climbed to UBSL the sun finally cleared and the day turned bluebird.... at least above me....for a little while.... the increasing clouds building to the south and east had started to bear down on me and it was mesmerizing, like watching a train bearing down on you.....I continued to ski and had reached UBSL by 8:30. At this point I had two problems, the first was the slope in front of me.....that would be it in the photo Steve posted.....tried to get a decent photo of it with my 1.3 mp camera phone.....wanted to show aspect and wind-loading, also convex/concave shape (*note* sorry .... I am an utter failure when it comes to taking photographs, altho did manage to get a few videos shot on my ipod.... in which my giant thumb plays a prominent/starring role)......as I had climbed between the two lakes I had begun to set off small slab slides, to a depth of about 5-6 inches. The effect was more pronounced the higher I went and I had concerns over this slope above me......found a safe spot with similiar aspect and dug.....didn't take long to realize I wasn't going further up this day. Sat and enjoyed the rest of the time I had.....ate lunch, listened to music, drank my (failed)summit beer, and watched the storm bear down on me.....one of the great things about ski mountaineering is your speed of descent......as first LBSL and then my own position were overrun by the storm I headed down......skiing conditions were not ideal, breakable crust with dense deep snow beneath......back to trailhead in about 30 minutes with heavy snow falling where I met two snowshoers and my mate .....back at car about 1:30pm......a really great day in the Sierras !!!
