Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Onion Valley - February 16, 2007

<img border="5" src="http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/photos/130517052-S.jpg" align="left">The Sentra makes it to within a quarter mile of the Onion Valley parking lot.




















I was looking forward to doing some Backcountry Skiing up in the Onion Valley area. Unfortunately, there isn't enough snow YET!

After the tour with Doug and Lunch at the High Sierra Cafe with Sarah and Laura, I headed up to Independence. I was really surprised to find that I was able to drive the Sentra up to about 9000'. Although the drive up involved crossing a few snowfields, there was only one short section of road that caused problems - I had to get out and clear rocks.

I did a walk up the road to see how the conditions were. Up at the road end, there was only about eight inches of snow.

Since it didn't look promising for BC skiing, I decided to do some laps on the skis. On the first trip up, I headed up to the "National Park Boundary 5 Miles Ahead" sign. This confirmed that there was not nearly enough snow to ski and I followed my tracks back down.

On lap three of four, I caught an edge and got dumped in a spot where there was only about three inches of snow covering the pavement. (For someone who doesn't fall very often, this was a shock!) As I stood up to shake it off, I was seeing stars. (Yeah, I hit my head on the pavement without a helmet. Who'd have thought I'd fall while skiing down a low-angle road? I guess my luck doesn't extend to Onion Valley.) My right shoulder, chest and and left leg also hurt. (Still do, two days later!)

I did another lap to see if I could shake off the kinks.

I headed down to the Independence Subway for dinner.

Found I had a message from Spinefxr stating that he wasn't going to be able to make the detour to Onion Valley. Glad to hear it, since it would have been a waste of time.

Headed up to Mammoth for a day of resort skiing on Saturday. It was nice to ski the place after an absence of twenty years. (1986-1987 was the last time I skied there on a regular basis. I'd been up there multiple times since, but never pulled the skis out of the car.) Found it unbelievable that I could get in 29 runs on a holiday weekend! (Thank goodness there are high-speed lifts now - the longest wait was about ten minutes, compared to hour waits being common on popular lifts in '87.)

Photos are at: http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/gallery/2487184

No pics of your split noggin eh? Thanks for the photos...

Chris

I didn't give more than a moments thought to skiing on Saturday without a helmet.

Mammoth photos are at: http://piotrowski.smugmug.com/gallery/2488004

Richard..Thank you for posting this! Beautiful pictures.. The picture of that very DRY slope is amazing! Im assuming it is pretty much a South facing slope? It really does not surprise me to see it dry.. Lake Tahoe has very little snow at this time..our driveway and patio is completely snow free....very odd to see this in the middle of February especially compared to last year...we had at one time 10 foot drifts in our yard last year & the 20 years we have lived in Tahoe we have never had this little of snow.

So very sorry about your fall..How is your head feeling? I love the pictures of Mammoth...looks like you had perfect weather..was it warm there? It was quite warm here yesterday
Winter is not over yet and we still might get more snow..I just hope we get it this month still & not in March and April:)

Nice pictures (both sets!). I bought my helmet after a tiny little fall on a patch of ice on a little Pennsylvania ski "mountain" nearly knocked me out. My spouse said she could tell I was hurting, because she could see my head bounce up and down several times when I hit (not to mention that I didn't get up for several seconds). But I confess that I probably wouldn't have worn it where you were, Richard.

Quick helmet story: When I was getting my new skis a couple of years ago, I had to pick them up from the rental area of the store, where a family was getting some skis for the weekend. The guy at the desk asked if they wanted helmets, and they hemmed and hawed, so he got out a series of pictures. They were X-rays of his girlfriend, showing a severely smashed shoulder and a number of other broken bones -- the guy said she'd been in the hospital for nearly a month and then rehab for several. "And," he said,"she wouldn't have even made it to the hospital if she hadn't been wearing a helmet." It all got *real* quiet for a minute, and the family all rented helmets...

The dry slope was to the skiers left of Dave's Run. It did have sun on it almost all day long.

The weather was almost warm enough for shorts and a tank top. There were a lot of people skiing in short sleeves.

The head is feeling a well as can be expected (no lasting effects that I know of), but the shoulder, chest and leg are still real sore. (May end up going to the doctor if the shoulder doesn't loosen up real soon.)

I started out the season last year without the helmet (at resorts) because I didn't realize that they had become so commonplace.

The way that they had groomed Cornice (hard-packed, nearly icy), I don't think I would have felt comfortable skiing it without a helmet. Dave's Run was the only other spot on the top of the mountain that looked to be in decent shape and it had lots of obstacles (love that grinding sound as you're heading down), so it's another place where it wouldn't have been wise to be without.

did you see more stars from your fall in the parking lot or from the snowball to the temple you received on Baldy??
Inquiring minds want to know!!!

Well, it looks like I did not miss much anyway. Thanks for the update. It sounds like we need another foot or two before it will be much fun in that area. Hopefully the storms being predicted will come through over the next several weeks.

Richard: Sarah and I did some skiing of our own down from Nopah Point, and it didn't even involve skis:

<img src='http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/397034190_567d88c054.jpg'>

Hmmm... next time I'm coming with you. You're safer, even if you are falling and crackin' your noggin.

-L

ADDENDUM: TR is here: http://www.mt-whitney.info/viewtopic.php?p=7898#7898

I assume you aren't still seeing stars? The reason I bring this up is continuing to see stars and/or flashes of light means you have a torn retina. A couple of years ago, I fell hard on very icy terrain and really wacked my head. Later that night I was still seeing "stars". Torn retina...nothing a little laser surgery couldn't fix.

Tom