May 14th, 2010: Eastern Sierra Fun

For the fourth time this season, I found myself headed to the east side of the Sierras. As expected, I was joining the usual suspects: Kevin (Yosemite Trans-Sierra), Yu (High Sierra Traverse), Funk (Glide Crack 360), and Andrew (adventures yet to come). There would be no ambitious Trans-Sierra adventures this time around, just some day tours in search of good snow and fun turns. The snow en route to Dana Peak proved to be a bit too sketchy, but we got plenty of turns on the way down. Funk's form was pretty spot on as he descended opposite the section of US-120 that Kevin and I traversed in February.

Where are you going with my snow?!? Mono County and the National Park Service are working hard to plow out Tioga Pass and get it opened for the summer tourists. In big snow years it can be quite an operation.

I'm beginning to get used to this whole hot springs thing, which is a fun activity to get used to. There are numerous hot springs in the Eastern Sierras and we found our way to Travertine Hot Springs, where the mineral-rich water emerging through the Earth's surface creates incredible formations such as this. Resorts would be hard pressed to duplicate these natural features, though they certainly try.

We probably would still be in the hot springs if the sun hadn't set. But it did, and it was phenomenol.