MT WOOD EAST FACE

      My old roommate Jon Lewis from Jackson rolled in a few days ago, and I wanted to get him a big sierra descent. Mt Wood is a giant mountain when viewed from HW 395. It is a big descent, covering almost 5500 vertical feet.

The big east face of Mt Wood

This a shortened view of the whole descent, probably only 3500 vert or so seen in the above photo.  Jon rolled into town the night before well rested, as was I, so we wanted to give this big descent a go. The day started like many do, in the dark, at a trail head, in the back of my van…does that sound bad? We were booted and fed about 6:45 a.m, and were greeted with a great sunrise.

Sunrise over Silver Lake

Jon skins up the lower bench of Mt Wood

We had hooked up with a skin track higher up, which I was really surprised of. People don’t really seem to ski the backcountry here like they do in the Tetons, not much competition here, just how I like it. Regardless, this mountain is huge and has plenty of room for tracks of your own.

 We climbed even higher, and finally got to the south ridge, and followed it to the true summit.

Jon on the upper flanks of Mt Wood

We arrived at the summit about 6 hours later, pretty good for climbing almost 5500 vertical.

Jon and I on the summit of Mt Wood

The large east face drops right off the summit for about 3000 vert or so before benching out a bit. The snow looked pretty good, and I dropped first.

Looking down the upper east face of Mt Wood

Dropping…

First turns off the summit of Mt Wood

I skied down a little way, and watched Jon ski off the top.

Jon carves the east face of Mt Wood

Jon finds something a little steeper

Jon finds some powder high on Mt Wood

Jon shows perfect form on Mt Wood

Jon using gravity to his advantage

I found some nice wind sculpted pow on the left side

and some more

Mono Lake backdrop

We skied the big east face down to a large bench, and the skied the apron of love for a few thousand vert.

Jon on the lower apron

Jon carves around an innocent sapling

Some apron love

And a little more

This was a great descent, really satisfying to climb that much vertical and get  good snow for most of the way. I think Jon was exited to get on a big face, away from the high avalanche conditions of the Tetons .Good to have a solid partner in town for a little while.  We cruised back to the trailhead and celebrated the day the only way we know…

Tiger Bar June Lake