Re: Skiing Clouds Rest

My favorite Fresno Bee reporter Marek Warszawski published an article Saturday:
Fearless skiers descend vertical Clouds Rest in Yosemite

These guys had to rappel some 500' in order to ski down the rest (no pun intended). Pretty crazy, but interesting anyway.

Some nice pictures with the article.

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. . Whitney Hikers Association . . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2013 11:44AM by SteveC.

WOW

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And this is cool. Boy would this have been fun to watch.

Wow, you restrained yourself from commenting on...

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The danger behind them, the two men could practically smell the pizza at Curry Village.

No kidding, awesome.

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but also a great deal of nerve because of the severe avalanche risk.

When camping on that hill along the Tamarack Flat Road, at least on top of the hill there was a relatively thin solid layer on top of faceted snow - most of what I melted for water couldn't be formed into a snowball, or even a minor snow clump. Last weekend while skiing in Tahoe I pushed my pole down in a well-packed area, once through a not-very-thick top layer the pole traveled freely. There's plenty of avalanche risk even in the not-so-steep areas.

awesome. they must of ended up somewhere around the half way point of tenaya . Pretty sheer drop off into the canyon below clouds rest from what i remember

btw... if you read the article... you'll note they ice climbed Widow's Tears earlier this year too
sa-nap

And... skied Quarter Domes
double sa-nap

reminds me of a story about (and I'm just paraphrasing this entirely).... powers that be
hired new person to oversee Badger Pass... someone who had never been in
Yosemite Valley before... the guy gets taken into the valley after a particularily big storm
and he's looking up at all the walls... and the hiring person asks him what he is thinking...
he says "this is really pretty amazing... but where are the beginners going to ski"

This guy... he's probably skied all of these chutes... including Taft, Tree, etc.
amazing

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Yeah I saw the Quarter Domes thing also. Just wow. This hasn't been the right season for it but I hope to watch these guys up close sometime. No way I'm doing that kind of skiing myself but it sure will be fun to watch.

Google Earth has destroyed the Quarter Domes. I went there to check the terrain relating to this subject and the elevation data is screwed up. I'm sure it was good not too long ago because I use G-E to fly around Yosemite Valley often. That sounds like an amazing ski adventure.

Exceptional accomplishment though not as extreme as the newspaper description so much as that whole granite slab slope is extremely dangerous due to avalanches, likely icy sections, and the reality that a fall would result in a very long rolling tumble ending up like hamburger. Thus required an experts understanding of the snow conditions.

So the Fresno Bee new article assumed some numbers that were a wee stretch. Even if one skied from the top down to the base of the canyon at 5200 feet the absolute vertical is 4724 feet thus not 5000. My suspicion is the obvious route may be the red line on the map. Otherwise the cliff sections necessary for rappel are considerable more than what was noted. In any case the red line is just my speculation at this point. Also the comment at the end of having to navigate another 1000 feet at the bottom makes sense from 6100 down to the 5200 foot valley section. Of course it was not mentioned there was no snow there but that would certainly have been the situation unless it just snowed. And no one would want to be anywhere at the bottom after a fresh storm due to certain avalanches. The actual average pitch as the bird flies worked out to 64% gradient which is less steep than famous advanced ski slopes like West Face on KT22 (68%). If they took the red line route their average pitch would have been maybe 55% grade because it is not a straight line and about 400 feet of vertical would be subtracted.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=39.18760,-120.23845&z=15&t=T&marker0=43.18492%2C-109.80698%2Clozier%20lakes%20WY



0.87" = 1000 feet map scale on David's monitor
5.0 inches horizontal distance on David's monitor
5/0.87 = 5.74
5.74*1000 = 5740 feet horizontal as bird flies
6100 feet elevation bottom of red line.
9760 feet elevation of descent point east of Clouds Rest summit 9924
9760-6100 = 3660 feet
Slope gradient = vertical height / horizontal distance
3660/5740 = 64% grade or 32.5 degrees average pitch
minus 400 feet of vertical between 7560 and 7960 rapelled

note I've been a skier for 3 decades
David

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http://www.davidsenesac.com



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2013 07:52PM by DavidSenesac.

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DavidSenesac

note I've been a skier for 3 decades
David

how long have you been a detective?

Yeah, I feel cheated. It's not that steep:



Piece of cake

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chick-on

Piece of cake

Yep, easy. Probably only two tents from top to bottom!

Here is another view of the probable line, you will figure it out...on the left side of the photo



And here is what happens if something does happen to break loose...this little snow slide is off of the top of the sub-dome at HD




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2013 04:07PM by Bearproof.

Half Dome via snowboard, another Yosemite "extreme": http://mrhalfdome.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/snowboard-down-half-dome-2/

Yowza (but what a crap picture)

I saw someone glissade down the subdome last year.
(w/o ice axe... I opted for just hiking down it.. thx)

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So, some guy takes his board to the top of Half Dome, (cables: DOWN) then picks
a line between the cables and the graveyard, rides from top to bottom (twice), and
the only proof we have is a photo in which the alleged daredevil looks EXACTLY
like a bare patch of rock?

Perhaps the next time he shreds Half Dome, he'll do so on the west side, so we
can all watch from Patterson, CA.

West side doesn't hold enough snow.

Seriously though... same realm as all the peeps who say they went to the park
and don't put up a single picture. Next trip I'm gonna just say I went.
(you can look for it on Monday).

Anywho... how about more pix of that CR ski. Amazing.

halfdome.net doesn't have this years Archive so the best can do is this took
on the 13th... 2 days before they did the ski:


how about one more from near where they may have zigged down to start


as for the hd thing... I guess I lied too... the guy only went down part of the subdome.
looked like this:


his butt track:


Half Dome fun

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chick-on

halfdome.net doesn't have this years Archive so the best can do is this took
on the 13th... 2 days before they did the ski

Here's a photo from the Sentinel Dome webcam for the 15th:

Nice! Looking at that my guess would be that they did a very big traverse and
completely avoided the Inner Gorge. Remember that this guy had already
just done Quarter Domes.
Again, amazing.

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chick-on
Nice! Looking at that my guess would be that they did a very big traverse and
completely avoided the Inner Gorge. Remember that this guy had already
just done Quarter Domes.
Again, amazing.

For the Quarter Dome descent, I'll speculate they may have skied from the 8316 foot summit southwest down the low gradient sunny forested areas then traversed northwest to the saddle at the head of the gully at 7480+. From there one can easily see how there is just one steep section between 6360 and 6560.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.75786,-119.50919&z=15&t=T

The Clouds Rest descent looks a lot nastier and dangerous. See link below. Obvious no one from the 9926 summit point is going take any part of the direct face to the northwest. Just major cliffs all across the topo.

But I like your idea Chick-on! Anyone that has been in that lower gorge needs serious climbing and rope skills. I do see an escape from my drawn red route at the top of a gully at 7040 that drops down to less gradients at 6400 that indeed they may have used. If that was possible the rest would be easier than my lower red line route. From there they may have traversed a mile southwest then dropped down from 6000 to 5680+ on a knob where two gullies diverge on each side. If they took the left one the canyon bottom could be reached. Will be an interesting read when they make public the details.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.77058,-119.49872&z=15&t=T

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http://www.davidsenesac.com



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2013 03:49PM by DavidSenesac.

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DavidSenesac

Anyone that has been in that lower gorge needs serious climbing and rope skills.

im sure the 50' rappels off of bolted anchors would be a cake walk to someone who just rappelled 500' off of what were most likely natural anchors

Indeed! Plus they had likely done that gorge route numerous times.

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http://www.davidsenesac.com

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ryanmj

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DavidSenesac

Anyone that has been in that lower gorge needs serious climbing and rope skills.

im sure the 50' rappels off of bolted anchors would be a cake walk to someone who just rappelled 500' off of what were most likely natural anchors

No question they would giggle at Tenaya Canyon traverse.... in fall...
in winter... boy I just don't know about that. I very very highly doubt they went into
the Inner Gorge. They prob. would have been unable to stay out of the water...
and water like that kills.

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