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searching for the right words here to start this one....all that comes to mind is "life is good"
three weekends in a row of epic riding. 1st the cali split party, then emerson in pow, now this!

last year was my 1st time out in this area and the snow conditions were horrible. i promised myself i would return to ride this again in better snow. well sure enough the conditions were a thousand times better this year.

access to this area is partly what makes it such a special place. beside the limited window of time when its legal to access this area, its extremely difficult to get back to this terrain, involving many miles of dry hiking with no trail. hiking up the george creek is certianly an adventure in and of itself! with all the creek crossings, bushwacking, sidehilling miles of talus, climbing over huge dead trees, sage scrambling, its about the most mentally and physically demanding experience one can endure.

i met robert (RJC) at the cali split party. when he said he was interested in going to trojan i did everything i could to make him aware of what he was getting himself into, but he still wanted to go.

anyway we got to lone pine late fri and camped out in the alabama hills. waking up sat morn it was nice to have a view of what we were going to climb


trojan peak is the one on the left, williamson on the right.

for a while i really didnt take any pictures. my camera was buried in my pack and it was a pretty intense hike to get to the snow. i feel like a whole part of the trip is missing but maybe RJC can fill in the blanks.

anyway we started hiking around 9am and didnt make it to camp till 7pm. also it took a lot longer than i thought it would to get to the snow so we ended up camping a little over 10k. that left almost another 4k to get through on sunday, requiring an alpine start. of course i blew the 3am start time and woke us up around 4:20. finally strking out from camp before sunrise, it felt good to be on snow with lighter packs.


early morning sun on the south face of williamson. this mtn is such a beast!


sunrise over the inyo




some other stuff in the neighbohood


finally we get to the bottom of the trojan bowl. im looking to where the entreance of the NE coulior is and thinking - gee maybe it might not be filled in enough. well in order to find out we would have to skin up the bowl, and potentially have to turn around to ride something else. we decided to head for it anyway and hope for the best. right in the center of this shot above the debris is what we were looking at, thinking "hope it goes"


absolutely perfect corn in the trojan bowl


some neat rocks on the south ridge of williamson


so we arrive below the line and sure enough it goes! at this point i was pretty happy


looking back at the george creek drainage, lone pine, and alabama hills.


booting was not too bad. RJC did lead for quite a bit, which I am very thankful for.


looking south - whitney n face. we almost stopped before topping out in the coulior but ended up pushing on. so glad we did. the top was primo older pow!



williamson's south side. its all burnt out now. i wish it was legal to access this area when there was more snow cuz that south face is BIG!

enough story now for the riding pics! all shots are of RJC














exiting the choke.


.....till next year!

Nice work that looks like some sick terrain.

Nice TR Snow looks much better there than we found on Irvine, hopefully will post the TR 2nite.

Dave great job on the TR! Even better job on navigating George Creek! Awesome time. I'll post some of my photos later tonight.

Sick! Sick! Sick! Stoked you made it and w/ good snow. Did you hit the peak? That's definitely high on my hit list. It's one of those I'm saving for a low snow year and good conditions. Bighorn/USFS closure be damned!

Disappointed in lack of bushwhacking pics

This is another level of adventure even for you Dave. Fight On Trojan, Fight On!

Can I go next year?

you have to get some pics of the travel in there - sounds like it was worth it though.

Awesome work D!

Awesome work Fullers and RJC...sounds like a brutal approach...RJC is to be commended for all bootpacking.

I finally got some time to post photos from this trip. I've been wanting to start exploring the Southern Sierra for some time now and when Dave said I could join him on the George Creek endeavor I was in. Here are the pics.

Starting out


The lower wooded section of George Creek


One of the many creek x-ings


Bushwacking






Sage scramble


George Creek Scenery






Skinning to camp


Camp


Dawn


AM moon


Dave skinning towards Trojan


Dave climbing the couloir


Topping out


Looking down Trojan's NE Couloir


Some shots of Dave riding








5 hours later, barely able to move, and stoked!

Great job, boys. Nice one to check off your bucket list.

I love this bushwhacking pic:

sick

I'm a pussy. Thank you.