Jordan Peak

It takes something out of the ordinary to get me up before 5 am, especially on a Saturday, but SMR (Sequoia Mountain Rescue) training on Saturday was worth it, as usual. We met at 0600 hours in the small town of Springville, nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills at an elevation of 1,000'. With one stop to add snow chains, we made it to our starting point just as the sun was starting to show. Once again, the "SMR curse" was with us- we always seem to have fantastic weather every time we go out. I haven't had the chance to train with the team in really inclement or severe weather yet, and that's precisely the weather we're most likely to get called out to operate in. (update: the storm system that had been projected for earlier in the week arrived hours after we left =)

Regardless, it was a fantastic day. Eleven team members climbed approx 2500' to summit Jordan Peak. Most of us wore snowshoes, but several team members used telemark and Randonee skis to climb, and of course, to descend. Until I moved out here I never really knew how backcountry skiers actually got uphill. The trick is that they use removable climbing "skins" which attach to the bottom of each ski and provide friction for ascending. I even got to try it out for a while. I don't consider myself much of a skier, but I've been to a few resorts, and I'll tell ya it's certainly a different experience trying to ski in deep powder in heavily wooded terrain with a large pack. Thankfully the soft snow and warm dry clothes made my many face and butt plants more embarrassing than painful.

The others were happy to let me break trail most of the way up. There's something special about being the first one to put tracks in a pristine and breathtaking environment.
The air quality was so good we could identify lots of features in the Valley, and even see some of the Coast Range.

We dug a snow pit for avalanche assessment. A snow pit provides for snowpack evaluation and the opportunity for different types of tests to determine stability.

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