Backcountry snowboarding is one of my great pleasures. It combines a top-ten passion - hiking in the mountains - and a top-three passion - snowboarding. California’s High Sierras offer dozens of peaks that hold snow past Memorial Day and more than a handful that reach 12,000 and higher will have snow cover well into July.

When the resorts and Tahoe region turn from white to green, the snow junkie looks to our biggest peaks knowing the fine white stuff still remains silently waiting. Strung out as such we headed out last Friday, June 24th, to find some. Since Tioga Pass, California’s highest roaded pass at 9950 feet had just opened that morning Cody and I bee-lined for it and it community of 13,000 foot behemoths.

Our plans was to sleep in and let the sun warm the snow that would surely have frozen overnight. We awoke to thick cloud cover and our reconnaisance found that though snow covered all the peaks, much was melted, rotted, swathed in dirt slides and worse. So we headed out under the moniker of Team Hyena (as in we’ll take the very last scraps we could find) to climb Mt Dana, a 13,000 footer. Fittingly snow started within half an hour and the temperature dropped from the high 50s to 41 degrees. Our ascent went up frozen sun cups, an arduous task in either boots or snowshoes.

Everything was frozen solid and the snow went unabbated. We stopped to contemplate cutting our losses and watched a giant fog bank consume the whole region. Within minutes the fog broke as fast as it came and astoundingly opened up blue sky all around us. In 15 minutes we were stripping layers, reapplying sunscreen and completely motivated to continue on.

In the 90 minutes it took us to reach our top level of 12,000 and eat lunch we were atop a 1000 foot seep and broad snow field of perfectly warmed snow, ideally conditioned for long sweeping turns. Dropping in was sublime and within two turns worth the entire effort. The sensation one receives turning - a near weightless maneuver - in consistent, soft, deep snow has been described deeply as soul riding. For me everything becomes nothing but movement and fluidity, sensation and release. Within minutes the descent was over, but the rush lasts for hours. The hike out required bushwhacking thru suncups, mtn undergrowth, tundra-like soil now deluded with run off and more than a couple big creek crossings. We were exhausted but transfixed with joy.

Cody took a vid

Tioga Pass other secret joy is that it’s just 9 miles from Mono Lake. 9 Himalayan-esque curvy miles descending 3000 feet of knuckle gripping beauty. Surrounded by volcanic cones and remnants, soaring Sierran peaks and a paucity of humans makes this million plus year old lake and it’s region one of my favorite in all of California. You can camp anywhere you want in the National Forest, sit in hot springs big enough for 40, and ponder obsidian chunks as big as a house while hiking thru volcanic plugs. And I just discovered the Whoa Nelly Cafe in the Mobil station has some damn fine food options!

The next day the storms and chill had passed and by the time we got back up to the pass the suncups were easy enough to trudge over without snowshoes. We went right back up Mt. Dana to get that one last descent of the year. There were even fewer people then on Saturday, the descent was again glorious and I can still feel the serenity and joy within me.

The snow should be holding for another week or so, so if you’re looking for a 4th getaway and no camping reservations needed, it’s still there, silently waiting for you, silently turning from snow to rock, silently repeating it’s million year old habits (uh, minus the lumbering RVs and the laptop you, I mean I brought along ;)