Bishop Creek / South Lake
Bishop Creek drainage (above Bishop, Hwy 168) · near Bishop · Eastern Sierra
Backcountry Skiing
At a glance
- Vertical
- 4000
- Best season
- April–June (sometimes May powder up high) · Spring ski-mountaineering only
Permits and booking
- Permit
- No permit for day tours. Inyo National Forest. Access via South Lake and North Lake trailheads off Bishop Creek Rd (Hwy 168) — road access to the higher trailheads improves as spring progresses. Serious high-alpine terrain.
Worth knowing
- Gear you must bring
- Beacon · Probe · Shovel · Skins · Ski crampons · Ice axe · Boot crampons · Helmet · Rope (for some objectives)
- Gear worth bringing
- Airbag pack · Second tool · Whippet
Guides, rentals and operators
- Guides
- Blackbird Mountain Guides · Sierra Mountain Guides
Backcountry Skiing detail
- Nickname
- The 13,000-Foot Couloir Cathedral
- Directions note
- Winter road closure point on South Lake Rd varies — expect added skinning miles
- Ates
- extreme
- Tour types
- ski-mountaineering
- Summit
- 13748
- Approach
- Long — often trail-walking, skinning, and bootpacking to reach 12,000–13,000ft lines · Road access improves through spring
- First timer with guide
- No
- Guide recommended
- Yes
- Avi zone
- Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center · esavalanche.org
- Signature lines
- Mt. Emerson North Couloir · The Wahoo Gullies (Mt. Locke) · Mt. Gilbert & the South Lake basin
- Intl tip
- Bishop is the Eastern Sierra hub — the couloirs pair with everything else here in the spring: hot springs (swimming guide), the Buttermilks climbing (climbing guide) once they melt out, and the Hwy 395 corn circuit. Sage to Summit and Eastside Sports rent AT gear; Erick Schat's Bakery fuels the dawn starts.
The guide
The Bishop Creek drainage above Bishop is the Eastern Sierra's couloir cathedral — a concentration of steep, aesthetic ski-moun…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Bishop Creek / South Lake — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 37.168, -118.567