On April 9-11, 1982 Jim White and I ski toured twelve miles to North Lake and nearby area. We left Independence after lunch and drove to ski trailhead. Found the road had been plowed all the way to Lake Sabrina so parked the car at the North Lake road turnoff. Skied up the road and across North Lake to the Schober Pack Station cabin where we made camp for the night in the cabin.
Saturday morning we headed on skies up toward Piute Pass. The snow was crusty in sunny areas but got better as we headed up the trail. Numerous small avalanches kept coming down the gullies on the south/west across the creek from us. The wind was pretty stiff coming over the pass but we kept going up to just below the final climb to Loch Leven Lake.
We turned around because of the wind and it was sprinkling. Skied down to the campground and then climbed part way up the slope toward Grass Lake as the sprinkles turned to rain. Finally headed back to the cabin, climbing up behind it to ski down a nice slope right to the cabin as the rain picked up.
From 2 p.m. or so on into the night it really rained by the bathtub full. Toward dusk it turned to slush and finally snow. The slush piled up on the roof and leaked in under the tin causing some drippy spots inside. We were sure glad for the cabin instead of a tent.
Sunday morning it was still stormy and we waited until noon before leaving. The lake was covered with slush so we stayed on the road. As we rounded the corner where we could see the lower main blacktop road we saw several snow slides had come down on the road below the car. It turned out the car was trapped so we went down to Cardinal Lodge and phoned for Jim's parents to come get us. Was quite a weekend. (Returned and got the car the following weekend when the snow had melted enough to drive around and over the slides.)
North Lake/Piute Lake Ski Tour 1982
