Sierra Eastside Winter

Just moved to Vegas from the East Coast, and I'm looking for some recommendations for routes within a ~7 hour drive. Ideal route would be 1-2 days, technical enough to be engaging but not require a rope, and since I don't ski not have a super long 1st class approach. 

Whitney mountaineers route looks perfect, if the road wasn't closed.

Take a look at Telescope Peak in the Winter posts.

Picking up skiing, even just for the approach, would be very valuable. Skinning up the roads can save you tens of hours and open up lots of possibilities for winter-time objectives. Also on some slopes/snow conditions skinning up is way faster than booting and mean you are less exposed to rockfall/avalances. That is why I started skiing, but since enjoyed the actual skiing aspect more and more and now mostly just choose "proper" skiing objectives.

If you are just looking for a pair of skiis/boots to keep you from post-holing, rather than shredding the gnar, there are a lot of cheap used ones at Gear Exchange in Bishop.

Some objectives that come to mind that aren't too heinous without skiis in the proper snow conditions and don't "require" ropes are Basin Mt. Couloir, Laurel Mt, and Morrison.

Thanks for the route recommendations, I’ll start checking them out.

Definitely looking to learn how to ski, haven’t gotten around to it yet since I’ve been investing in my climbing kit, but now that I finished that up looks like skiing is next. 

Chandler Morfitwrote:

Thanks for the route recommendations, I’ll start checking them out.

Definitely looking to learn how to ski, haven’t gotten around to it yet since I’ve been investing in my climbing kit, but now that I finished that up looks like skiing is next. 

I just started learning to ski, a few years ago -- and for this exact same reason. It's *trivially* easy to learn well enough to ski roads & basic trails -- and it's more fun than snowshoes.

You can rent full AT setups at Mammoth Mountaineering Supply, and they are super helpful and understanding with noob-type questions... I feel like I owe them a plug, here, on account of all the high-quality free advice they've given me, the past few years.

Have you already taken basic avalanche training? If not, there's a ton of AIARE 1 classes thru the guides in Bishop -- it just takes one weekend, and maybe 300-600 in avvy gear.

You don't necessarily need the course right away, if you heed the avvy forecast and stick strictly to gentle road/trail terrain.. but you should get trained as soon as you can swing it.

FYI -- some of the road gates are "soft closures"... Laurel lake road, Onion Valley, etc... You are allowed to drive up past the closure as far as your car/tires/chains can handle, and park so you're not blocking the road. Great way to get started with learning ski touring.

The four summits of Mt Corcoran all have 3rd class routes from the west side.  The east faces are each worthy climbing objectives, many FA's put up by the late Galen Rowell.  Access to the west side routes from Lone Pine is up the south fork of Tuttle Creek and over the col north of Langley.