Emerald Bay's Eagle Chute

They're unmistakable as you drive north on Hwy 89 around Emerald Bay - the Emerald and Eagle Chutes that run from the summit of Peak 9195.  Paradoxically, the chute closest to Eagle Lake is called the Emerald Chute, and the next line to skiers left - closer to Emerald Bay - is called Eagle Chute.  We were going for that left-hand line.

photos / skinning up and on the summit / pk 9195

Closer to midwinter, its possible to ski from the top to the Vikingsholm parking lot.  But these slopes are south facing and melt out fast, and yesterday we looked up at 300 feet of manzanita bashing.  So we drove north on 89 just a half-mile, gaining that 300 feet and re-entering just above the snow line, where a summer cabin road runs uphill from the highway.  We decided to skin up Avalanche Gully, instead of booting up the Eagle Chute.  The firm snow conditions allowed us to take a really steep skin line, skipping a lot of swichbacks.  By 10:30 - less than two hours after we started - we had climbed 2300 feet to the summit.

photos / ridge traverse

A short ridge traverse along exposed rocks lead to the entrance - were we could see the entire run from top to bottom.  We leap-frogged our way down in four steps, with the dogs running behind, on good corn snow.  Staying to the right side (more north facing), we found the best corn and avoided the cunky avie debris still resting in the center of the chute.  At the bottom, we had a simple traverse back to the car, and a short drive to West Shore Pizza for pie and beer.  Another perfect day!

Statistics:  Peak 9195, Eagle Chute.  2300 feet climbed and skied with S. van Tol, Lucy and Charlie.

Photos:  In order of appearance, photos #2, 5-7, 9-10, 13-14 are courtesy of Sander van Tol.  All other photos are Chris Simmons.  (I'm working on doing a better ob giving photo credit.)


About the map:  Created on National Geographic Topo software, this maps shows the most popular west shore peaks - Rubicon,  Jake's, 9195, and Maggie's.  Red lines are the ascents, blue lines are the descents.  

For Pk 9195 I've marked both chutes, though I've only skied Eagle Chute (the skier's left hand line).  The red ascent line is Avalanche Gully.