Round Top 10,381′ and The Sisters East 10,153′ and West 10,045′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 6:30
Distance: 7.8 miles
Elevation Gain: 3200′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Carson Pass, trash and pit toilets
With the historic winter and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, I decided to bite the bullet and finally invest in a ski mountaineering set up, finding it would be the most efficient way to tackle the snow which would linger well into the summer. Although I started looking into buying a setup in April, it took until June to have my boots, skis, bindings and skins ready for a test drive. I wanted to find a relatively easy first objective, particularly since I hadn’t been skiing since before I broke my ankle, not to mention my inexperience with using skins. Although about 4 hours from home, I decided to try Round Top above Carson Pass, a prominent Sierra Peak Section Peak that is very popular and well traveled with backcountry skiers given it’s proximity to the pass, open year round. I left home very early, driving through the Central Valley before cutting east to the pass, arriving shortly after sunrise. There was another solo skier getting ready in the otherwise empty lot, and I watched as he plodded in his heavy boots into the forest, popping on his skis before taking off. I walked over to the same spot and put on my skins, a fabric lining for the bottom of the skis to allow uphill progress.
As the equipment was all new to me and I was essentially learning a new sport with no in person guidance (for the record, I did try to find a number of partners that day), it took me a good half hour to finally start moving through the forest. Although the snowpack was deep, there were tons of deep snow wells surrounding each tree, along with branches and needles spread across the dirty snow accumulated from the long winter. Progress was slow, and I tried to follow tracks through the forest, quickly losing them in sun cups. I reached a small snow filled meadow and had my first good look at Round Top for the day along with my line of ascent and descent along the west ridge.
I dove back into the forest, angling to the east to try and avoid any extra elevation loss and gain crossing the drainage from Lake Winnemucca. I reached another clearing and spotted the solo climber from the parking lot already starting down the slopes above, hammering home just how slow I was moving in the suncupped terrain in the new and unfamiliar style.
Continuing on, I dropped into the drainage just below Lake Winnemucca, the suncups considerably deeper now above the trees, my ski tips catching the edges resulting in more than a few face plants. Things actually improved once I started again uphill, the sun cups not quite as deep from the hundreds of ski lines imprinting in the snow from throughout the spring.
The skins worked remarkably well, and I worked up broad benches to the toe of a scree field in the middle of the snow. I popped off my skis here, throwing them over my shoulder as I hiked up the scree in my boots on a well defined use trail. I needed to cross some snow to reach the saddle, but it was soft enough to easily kick in steps to the top of the snow.
The summit of Round Top was directly above to east, and I took off my ski boots and switched into light hiking boots, a number of trip reports saying the last bit of snow free scrambling was quite unenjoyable in ski boots. I was almost immediately glad for it as I started up the loose volcanic rock and definitely felt a bit spoiled not to find the usual solid granite found throughout most of the range.
It was fairly easy to keep things class 2 up until crossing over the final false summit with a 50′ notch in between. A use trail to the south wound into the notch with a short bit of class 3 to reach the high point, taking me over 3 hours, a good chunk of that time wasted on figuring out gear. The views were outstanding, with Pyramid, Dicks and Tallac to the north and Lake Tahoe behind, Freel to the northeast, the mountains of Nevada to the east, and the snowy summits along Ebbetts and Sonora Pass to the south. To the west were the two sub summits of Round Top, The Sisters East and West, both of which would make easy bonus peaks.
I retraced my steps, dropping back to the saddle and continuing on a use trail direct up to the summit of The Sister East, taking only 7 minutes from the saddle itself.
The lower Sister West looked equally as close and I boot skied down scree and scrambled up to the third summit, the rock actually some of the most stable of the day despite looking atrocious from a far. It had taken me 10 minutes to cover the distance between the two peaks.
It was another 13 minutes to drop off and traverse the southern slopes of the Sister East, bagging two extra 10,000′ peaks for 30 minutes of extra effort. Not bad. Back at my main pack, I put my skis back on and switched into downhill mode. I was a bit nervous as I pushed off into the soft late morning snow, but was quickly smiling ear to ear and I turned down the slope, taking wide and conservative lines and doing my best not to wipe out in the suncups.
I skied all the way into the drainage beneath Lake Winnemucca and started to follow this for as long as I could. Unfortunately, the drainage headed to Woods Lake not Carson Pass and my car, and I needed to ultimately take off my skis and boot pack through the forest, the thick consolidated snow easily holding my full weight without additional floatation. I had dropped ~1,500′ in ten minutes from the saddle and even with the final bit of boot hiking at the end still made it back to the trailhead in under 1.5 hours from the saddle, the downhill clearly the payoff of myt new skiing set up.
After a quick change of clothes I headed west back down Carson Pass, making it home in time for dinner.