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Ascending to Scimitar Pass on the Palisade Crest. |
Palisades Crest Tour
This little gem idea for a 6-day crest tour was pioneered by Big Pine based SMG guide Howie Schwartz while training ski guides a few years back, and has since become a modern ski mountaineering classic. The Palisades are the most definitively alpine group of peaks in the Sierra, containing the largest glacier in the Range and 7 summits above 14,000 feet. What is really incredible about crest tours is the potential for so much fall-line skiing in steep couloirs and wide open bowls. We aim for the time of year when the snowpack is more stable and when we typically have pow on the shaded aspects and sweet corn in the sun. This tour finishes with a 7,000 foot descent from a 13,000 foot summit all the way down to the desert sage. Designed for expert skiers and experienced ski mountaineers who want to enjoy some rowdy guided skiing in an itinerary that puts the fun factor absolutely off the charts in all aspects. Get ready for the ride of a lifetime!
Trip Itinerary | Prerequisites 
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| TRIP ITINERARY: Palisades Crest Tour |
DAY 1
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Meet your guide in the town of Big Pine. After a car shuttle to drop a vehicle off in the desert, we drive to Glacier Lodge where the tour begins. Hike and then ski tour up the North Fork of Big Pine Creek past Temple crag to a camp near the Palisade Glacier. |
DAY 2 |
Meet your guide in the town of Big Pine. After a car shuttle to drop a vehicle off in the desert, we drive to Glacier Lodge where the tour begins. Hike and then ski tour up the North Fork of Big Pine Creek past Temple crag to a camp near the Palisade Glacier. |
| DAY 3 |
Climb steep snow with ice axe and crampons up the V-notch Couloir to the summit of Polemonium Peak, 14,080’ (or the L-shaped couloir on Mt Sill, 14,153’, to that summit) to access the Southeast Bowl of Polemonium. This is a strenuous alpine climb with skis on our back, but well worth the effort on the other side. Ski one of the best moderate runs off of a 14,000' peak in the Sierra on the way down to camp at an alpine lake beneath Palsade Crest. |
| DAY 4 |
An early start for the ascent up and over Scimitar Pass. Not really a pass but more like a weakness over the shoulder of the Palisade Crest. This is a spectacular and airy place to be with sheer rock faces dropping off precipitously to skier’s left. We will trend right to ski some steep east facing slopes. If conditions are right, we may bump over the Thunderbird Ridge, involving some technical climbing, or we will ski down, finding good snow and ski descents of our choosing along the way to camp in the greater Southfork of Big Pine Creek drainage. |
| DAY 5 |
Up and over Southfork Pass to our next camp on sunny granite slabs beneath The Thumb. We drop camp and aim to ski either the Northeast Bowl or North Couloir of Mt. Bolton Brown. This is a premier ski peak of the High Sierra. |
| DAY 6 |
The Grand Finale! Ski mountaineering at its best negotiating a short knife-edge ridge putting us on the Southeast Face of The Thumb. Summit The Thumb, 13,356’, and ski down it into the roller coaster ride of a run down Birch Creek. In good conditions we can ski 7000’ down to the desert sage and right to the vehicle we stashed way back on Day 1. Celebrate in Big Pine. |
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Prerequisites:
- Expert downhill skiing skills
- Ability to control speed and execute fall-line turns in control and comfort in difficult snow conditions (deep powder, heavy and/or moist snow, breakable crust, firm or icy, etc.)
- Ability to execute hop turns on 45+ degree, firm slopes, coming to a complete and immediate stop at the finish of each turn
- Ability to sideslip forward and backward, with edge control, on steep, firm slopes
- Experience ski mountaineering using ski mountaineering equipment (touring boots, bindings, skins, ski crampons, transceiver, shovel, probe, boot crampons, ice axe, harness, etc.)
- Ability to make uphill facing kick-turns in an uphill track on a steep slope
- Experience ski touring with a pack >40lbs.
- Excellent fitness
- Prior experience at altitude (10,000+ ft.)
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