Manning's Adventure

Ostrander Ski Adventure: 1998
by Robert Manning

After weeks and weeks of full metal jacket weather, which we were equipped for, El Nino finally gave way to a high pressure and gave us four sunny days and windless nights in Yosemite's winter wonderland. A single layer of polyester was all I could wear during the days. Some skiers were wearing shorts. (This lucky sunny weather has been with us four out of four trips even though we make our reservations months in advance).

After weeks of planning, anticipation, and physical conditioning, our annual trip started on Friday morning, February 27, 1998, with a meeting and departure from my home in Southern California. The drive to Oakhurst was uneventful except for a road closure and detour on Highway 99 due to flooding in the San Joaquin valley, which cost us an extra hour. Upon arriving at the usual motel, we found it closed; but we located another one which was much better. We decided to go out to the usual Sushi place for dinner where two years before a
couple of brothers got the sushi chef really drunk, and found that it had in fact moved into a new and larger building that doubled its size. I could not believe how beautiful this place was. The walls were hand painted by a very skilled artist and the whole place was absolutely gorgeous--exceeding anything I have seen in L.A.--real eye candy. The food there was great as it always has been. I also cannot believe this place exists in such a small town as Oakhurst, but then it is the southern gateway to Yosemite.

Saturday morning, Dave, Jacques, and I entered Yosemite National Park at twenty dollars per vehicle, drove to Badger Pass ski area, and obtained our wilderness permits. We then attached our backpacks which each contained food, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, stove, tent, foul weather gear, shovel, headlamp and other essential items, and skied the set track on Glacier Point Road, nine miles to a small dome just west of Illilouette Ridge. In case you are
wondering what a set track is, it is a pair of grooves for your skis that are carved in the snow by a guy in a snowcat. The machine cut grooves make it easier to guide your skis. We made our camp at 8000 feet on the southeast exposure of this sparsely treed hill. My two companions dug out a snow cave into the southeast side of this dome where they planned to sleep on carved shelves.

During the diggings, I watched a cloud stretch its way up the canyon below, like a slow moving river of fog, where it condensed and vanished, leaving a strip of frosted pines. Dave made a fire atop some wet tree bark. The tree bark keeps the fire from sinking down into the snow and works best if you place alternating layers of bark and snow so the bark stays saturated by the melting snow. Eventually the bark burned through and the fire quickly sank five feet down into the snow, forming a crater four feet wide. I had soup, salad, and Bill
Clinton Stew (that's a weenie in hot water) on a French roll, which I cooked on my backpacker's stove. Dave cooked a New York Steak on the fire. Arrrrrugh. After dark I had a freeze dried astronaut ice cream sandwich that I found at the KCET store at the Promenade Mall for dessert. It was crunchy and pretty tasty.

Sunday morning, the sun rose in the lowest pass of the Clark Range and beamed straight into the snow cave at 6:45 a.m. What perfection and what a view we had of the High Sierra backcountry. It was incredible! Dave's thermometer registered down in the mid teens.

We packed our essentials and hit the track at 9am and coasted back downhill three miles to the Horizon Ridge trail. This is the infamous "devils triangle" of the route to Ostrander Ski Hut where a skier's internal compass may spin as fast as the wind howls outside. This is also where some late starters have been known to get lost in a storm.

The trail is well marked with yellow reflectors on trees. But in a storm, after dark, with high winds, watch out! ALWAYS CARRY A HEADLAMP AND STAY ON THE TRAIL. IF YOU LOSE THE MARKERS, GO BACK TO THE LAST ONE YOU SAW. THE SEARCH PARTY WILL BE LOOKING FOR YOU ON THE TRAIL. They usually carry a thermos of hot chocolate.

Dave needed to return to his home, so Jacques and I said adios to him! We then attached "climbing skins" to the bottom of our skis and, in sunny weather, started up Horizon Ridge trail. The "skins" (now made of a synthetic material so that only polyesters or nylons are hunted to make them, probably somewhere out in Patagonia) are adhered to the bottom of the skis. They have a nap in one direction enabling the skis to slide forward but not backwards. The Swedes are known to have employed animal skins on skis as early as 1555. Soon we were above the red fir forest and could see the back side of Half Dome and a great deal of Yosemite Park. I skied to the very top of the Horizon Dome at 8200 feet for some pictures while Jacques skirted the dome on the well worn trail a couple of hundred feet below. Then we skied down to the base of Heart Attack Hill. I remember years ago, a friend telling me that his Dad's friend died of a heart attack while skiing to Ostrander and that is how the hill was named. After we climbed Heart Attack, it was just a short trek to the small glacial amphitheater where Historic Ostrander Ski Hut (Civilian Conservation Corps, 1940) sits on the south facing bank of frozen Ostrander Lake.

Upon our arrival, we were amazed to see the solid granite hut under twelve feet of snow. We actually had to climb five feet down to the front step to enter the Hut. There were a few people hanging out in front of the hut reading and sunbathing. Others were out skiing.

We grabbed our gear and made claim to a couple of lower bunks with regular American mattresses measuring a full seven inches thick. The bunks are three high with nine on the west side of the hut and six on the east. The stone walled hut is heated by a wood burning stove. There is a thirty foot long table down the middle of the hut with full length benches on each side of the table--like at the Mongolian Barbecue (there is even a drawing on the wall of Ghengis & Sylvia Kahn). Upstairs is a loft with more mattresses on the floor. The hut holds
about twenty-five people. The ranger's quarters is on the end.

Sunday evening at the hut was cozy and conversive. We made dinner at the long table and chatted with other intrepid skiers from around the world. The thick mattress felt extremely luxurious after the night out on the snow.

Monday morning, Jacques and I skied to the top of Horse Ridge and cruised the lip of the cirque headwall of Ostrander Bowl where we had lunch. This again gave us a tremendous view of a great portion of Yosemite and beyond at a modest elevation of 9000 feet. We returned to the hut by 1pm and packed up to leave.

After only a single night at Ostrander we made our entry in the log book and departed at 2pm descending Horizon Trail. The snow, which was softened by the sun, slowed our descent. At 4:30pm we decided to camp and found a level spot in the woods along Glacier Point Road. We tromped down the snow with our boots and pitched the tent in a sparsely treed clearing.

After a hot meal on our propane stoves, we settled in for a long winter's nap. Propane does not like really cold temperatures so I put the cylinder in my sleeping bag that night to keep it warm. The warm cylinder helped the stove burn a little hotter the next morning, but it soon started to slow down as the propane began to cool, so I dipped the cylinder into a pot of warm water and that really got things cooking again. I brought a small piece of varnished plywood to set my stove on so it would not sink into the snow.

I was very warm most of that night but then it got a little cold toward morning in this low lying area. I don't know if it was too long between caloric intakes (twelve hours from dark to dawn) or if it was just colder that morning. I think it was colder--maybe around zero F.

When I got up on Tuesday morning, the tent was covered with a thick frost-- no doubt from the same type of cloud I had seen down in this canyon two nights before. I had coffee, oatmeal, cup noodles, and hot chocolate. We skied four miles back to Badger Pass for a grand total of about thirty miles, then drove home. The word I would like to use to describe this adventure was found in the Ostrander log book. OSTRANDEROUS !!