Apparently this guy doesn’t believe in the California drought…
“The ski season refuses to die in California despite of a unprecedented drought…so the snow soldiers roll on! The mountain highway passes (89, 4, 108, & 120) all opened in April because of the lack of snow. As a frequent ski tourer of said passes, the usual plan of attack is to get there right when they open as snow conditions generally deteriorate once they open. However, after a few decent storms of over a foot of snow in early May, the passes have played an open & shut game. The cards finally aligned on May 12th for my backcountry partner Jamie Blair and I to spend a day touring to the Y Couloir off Leavitt Peak via Sonora Pass. Our main issue were the winds…they were insane and probably sustained the 80mph on the exposed ridges. With a few moments of ‘turning around,’ we went for it and made it to the summit of Leavitt Peak in around 3 hours. Given the wind, we knew the snow conditions would suck…and they pretty much did. The Y Couloir was a mix between frozen old snow, firm wind-packed new snow, and some softening in the sunny aspects at 1pm. Ideally a later descent would have yielded much better results. Only the lower slopes down to the car were perfect corn at 2pm…which of course we milked and had a great time doing so.
..oh and the pass has been shut almost non-stop since May 22nd due to new snow. Is there another visit in order? Yes, I believe so…”