Trip Report: 12,808' Four Gables, CA

Report from May 31, 2023

Yesterday morning, we went for a mellow classic that we’d never done before.

Up at 4am.

Hiking by 6am.

We went for the Central Bowl.

Good firm snow for cramponing was a godsend.

We moved well due to the firm snow and it was a dream not to be post-holing for once!

This zone is spectacularly beautiful, wet, large, with a tungsten mine, and a big mountain feel.

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It took us a few minutes to find the trail after we parked but we found it just next to the pack station.

The trail was gorgeous.

We hiked up the trail in shoes until we saw the tongue of snow hanging out of the lower chute of Central Bowl.

We off-trailed to the snow and switched to boots and crampons.

After only about 10 minutes of hiking there was a break in the snow with a waterfall.

We sketchily rock climbed and pulled on branches to get above it.

Once above it we noticed an old mining road that switchbacked around the waterfall and we planned on using that on the way down to avoid a sketchy down-climb.

The snow was firm.

The cramponing was all-time.

We moved well.

We hit the upper bowl with chutes after 3 hours and 30 minutes of hiking.

Things were firm.

We chilled there for an hour letting things soften up.

We then took about an hour to boot up the chutes.

The four of us split up briefly with Greggy & I skiing one chute and Trevor & Dwanis skiing another.

We didn't linger on top long as a thunderstorm out in the Owens River Valley was tracking straight for us and starting throwing thunder our way.

Greggy and my chute was perfect corn with a couple firm spots.

Trevor & Dwanis’ chute was a bit more firm but still good.

There are about 5 chutes to choose from in the bowl.

They are all short but all fun.

From there was skied down the roller coaster bowls down into the chute at the bottom.

The skiing was good.

The skiing was fun.

I was tempted to just ski down to the waterfall and down-climb in the bushes on the skiers left to get more turns.

Greggy yelled at me and pulled me onto the switchback road.

For the record, it would’ve been more fun to keep skiing…

We trudged along the old mining road and right where it switched-back were directly in the entrance chute to the lookers left bowl.

We walked the road back to snow, found our shoes, and grateful donned them with smiles all around.

The trail back to the car was dreamy.

Soft dirt and pine needles.

Mostly shaded.

Warm.

Birds chirping.

Dreamy.

Back at the car we felt good.

Our next goal is the nearby monster Basin Mountain.

We’d planned on driving over and taking a look at it but we all vetoed that and headed straight home.

Thanks, California!