Treading Softly : A High Sierra Snowshoe Shuffle

For most people, snowshoeing calls to mind grizzled fur-trappers with French accents traversing the Yukon avoiding ze bair while in search of pelts of bee vair. But when my wife Kathleen and I found ourselves making like Pierre and Lulu in the Far North--of California, that is--we were in fact retracing some of the steps of pioneer scout Kit Carson on the first east-to-west Sierra crossing.

Not that we’d planned it that way. And not that Kit Carson could ever possibly have looked like us, limbs akimbo, our initial rhythmic flailing eventually settling into, well, permanent rhythmic flailing.

No, what we’d originally planned was an extended weekend ski trip. I’ve visited literally dozens of ski resorts since I began skiing a decade ago, and Kirkwood, southeast of South Lake Tahoe near Carson Pass, stood out as having provided one of my most fun days ever. I’d been trying to get back ever since, and this year I wasn’t going to let it get away from me. My wife and I arranged for a leisurely arrival and three full days at the resort; her only stipulation was that the trip not be devoted solely to skiing, that one of the three days we try something entirely different. Perhaps she was thinking about a sleigh ride.

We flew into Reno Airport in early January, picked up our rental car and began the 77-mile drive to Kirkwood. We’d chosen the least expensive condominium, and awaiting us at the 52-unit Meadows was a decidedly functional studio, with a Murphy bed and no hangers, but with a fireplace and kitchen that made it perfect for romantic evenings in. (South Lake Tahoe accommodations are also within easy striking distance, 30 miles, and often more economical.)

We prepared our own meals--an elaborate salade Nicoise one night, for example, and the best spare ribs of our lives together--and experimented with Australian cabernets we’d found in a Carson City supermarket on the drive down.

At 7,800 feet, Kirkwood Ski Resort boasts the highest base elevation of any Tahoe resort. It’s a family-style place; junior night life includes a slam dunk competition, and two lifts serve beginners’ terrain exclusively. Some prices had been markedly reduced since my visit several seasons ago. A first-time skier package, for example, including lift ticket, rentals and clinic--the word lesson is studiously avoided--has gone down from $40 to $25. Clinics, once $18, are now $12.

On our first day, I explored all lifts save the double-black-diamond Wagon Wheel, figuring I still had two days to screw up my courage. Careening up and down the walls of Kirkwood’s gullies was a blast.

Late last year, when Kathleen was out of town, I’d attended a slide presentation on snowshoeing at a local outfitters store. Not to mix metaphors too liberally, I was pretty hot to try my, um, foot at the sport, and so it was that we shoe-horned a day between two others on the slopes. We began it by making a beeline for Kirkwood’s Cross Country Center. The snowshoes, $10 per day, were one-size-fits-all; poles came with the package.

The old wooden snowshoes were wide and heavy, up to 10 pounds, and basically awkward. Newer aluminum-and-Hypalon models such as those we wore can be less than two pounds, and agile enough to run races. Indeed, there are more than 50 snowshoe races in the U.S. this season, most notably Alaska’s 100-mile “Iditashoe.” If you can walk, you can snowshoe, so there was no need for lessons.

We drove along frozen Caples Lake, out on the middle of which we spotted a fox sizing up fish through a hole in the ice, and past the turn-off to the Schneider Cow Camp, to Carson Pass at 8,573 feet. We parked at the Sno-Park, and immediately knew we’d come to the right place, for there was a monument to “Snowshoe Thom(p)son,” a.k.a. John Tostensen, “a true pioneer.” Thom(p)son--the spelling of his name is a matter of contention--carried U.S. mail in winter over routes impassable by horse or wagon.

We entered the Mokelumne Wilderness at the Carson Pass trail head. Signs warned about avalanche danger and described our itinerary as a 10-kilometer loop. We agreed that we could turn back at any point. Descending into the forest, we saw no bear tracks, but any number of huge cat paws. We almost immediately lost sight of distinctive Elephants Back mountain, and simultaneously any sense of orientation. We were not exactly old hands with a topographic map, and choosing the right trail often proved tricky.

But somebody must have known that, for blue diamond cross-country markers, and blue ribbons tied to tree branches, helped us find our way. We followed them and were occasionally reassured by snowshoe tracks coming back in the other direction. Of course, those could have been Snowshoe Thom(p)son’s, for all we knew.

My snowshoeing technique could certainly have stood some fine-tuning, since I fell not once, not twice, but three times, in each case the toe of one shoe becoming ensnared half way up the the heel of the other. (It turns out the shoes can easily be adjusted for us pigeon-toed folks.) My wife experienced no such problems. We had figured that snowshoeing might be grueling, but the exertion proved similar to that of any hike. And as might be expected on any hike in any season, quick gains in elevation required the greatest effort.

The trail suddenly opened onto an incredible vista. We were an hour out, and it seemed the perfect time for a PowerBar: “fuel for optimum performance,” the package proclaimed. Unfortunately, the bars were too cold to bite into, but they gradually thawed in the sun.

*

We turned another corner and Elephants Back suddenly loomed before us, resembling less an elephant’s back than that of a humpback whale. As we made our way along its base, the wind-swept slopes of snow offered imprints similar to those left by waves at the seashore. We sat down on a rock and looked out on an environment undisturbed by motion in any direction, and confident in our notion that we were the only people as far as the eye could see. That notion was presently dispelled when two cross-country skiers skied up, just in time to take our photo with Round Top Peak in the background.

For those so inclined, the summit of Elephants Back, a couple hundred feet above, appeared an easy walk up the south flank. Since we didn’t know what lay ahead, it seemed to come down to a choice between taking a leisurely lunch and soaking in the utter perfection of the moment, or continuing our hike.

We were awfully happy nestled there, and such moments are not to be taken lightly. We enjoyed our picnic in the snow, peppered turkey pastrami sandwiches and fruit, delicious out of all proportion. Perhaps if we’d known then that Carson and Lt. John Fremont had actually climbed Elephants Back, and from that vantage Carson had recognized mountains bordering the coast that allowed him to chart the party’s course to Sutter’s Fort, we’d have decided otherwise. And perhaps not.

On our return trip, a firm sense of direction established, following a trail seemed decidedly less crucial. We winged it across an expanse of white until at tree line--in this case a stark boundary between forest and slope--we espied a tiny blue diamond marking our way home.

Instead of walking on the packed snow of the cross-country trail, however, we continued to break our own trail through the woods, making an endless succession of what every alpine skier dreams of, fresh tracks in virgin powder. Relatively loud on hard pack, the shoes now proved far quieter. With Kathleen in the lead, I watched the snow fly from side to side in a motion that lent her the air of a happily waddling duck.

Exiting the trail head, we noticed another marker buried in several feet of snow. I could just make out “Carson,” and proceeded to dig it out: “On this spot . . . stood what was known as the Kit Carson tree, on which the famous scout inscribed his name in 1844.”

I also more closely examined the obelisk to Snowshoe Thom(p)son, erected as part of bicentennial projects by Nevada members “of the ancient and honorable E Clampus Vitus .” Among chapters listed as donors was the Transierra Roisterous Alliance of Senior Humbugs, whose acronym apparently would be TRASH.

When our third morning dawned, Kirkwood’s Wagon Wheel lift still beckoned, and courage high, sort of, I rode it up. I also skied down, sort of.

Budget for Two

Round-trip air fare to Reno: $214.00

Car rental, four days: 99.92

Snowshoe rental for two: 20.00

Ski lift tickets and lesson: 168.00

Condo, three nights: 225.00

Groceries, etc.: 96.52

FINAL TAB:$ 823.44

Kirkwood central reservations, (800) 967-7500. Kirkwood Cross Country Center, (209) 258-7248.