I don’t recall ever being scared in skiing before today. Sure there’s always a small fear of falling when learning a new sport, but I never remember being truly scared. Falling while skiing has rarely bothered me, as there’s almost always a soft landing. And after all, “if you’re not falling, you’re not trying!”
This was different. Standing at the top of the 42-degree slope of Dana Couloir looking 1000′ down the narrow band of dense snow, I couldn’t convince my legs to initiate the next turn. Perhaps it was the exposure of it, combined with the steepness and a hard crust of ice under less than an inch soft spring snow to cut a turn into. Or maybe the fall I had taken in a couloir the week before was making me second-guess my skills. The massive rock walls on both sides and boulders below the chute certainly didn’t help things. Nor did the wind ripping straight up from below making it hard to balance, or even think straight. Perhaps it was just one of those days. For whatever reason, or all of these reasons, my mind was out of my control. I was overanalyzing everything and I could focus on nothing but the consequences of a fall. And in many sports, once a person starts to think about falling, that’s usually what happens.
I’ve spent plenty of days rock climbing where the same thing has happened: I start over-thinking everything, concentrating on the consequences of falling, and fear overcomes my rational thoughts. Even when I know the rope will catch me long before I hit anything, the fear can be so powerful as to prohibit any movement at all. I’ve cancelled climbing trips on the first warm-up because I just know it isn’t going to go well that day. Often, a change in mood or coming back the next day will grant me the mental ability to go right back to where I was and climb a route without so much as a second of hesitation.
From the top of Dana Couloir I tried to concentrate on my next turn. But stuck in place trying to focus on where my skis would land on the first turn instead brought my eyes back to the 1000′ slide line below me. It’s hard enough to convince myself everything will be fine when I’m on a rope and there is rationally no consequence of a 10’ to 20′ fall. A thousand-foot 42-degree slide while dodging boulders all the way down, with no hope of stopping until the bottom, was much less ideal than any fall I’ve taken on a rope. There was just no telling myself it was going to be fine on this one. I could not fall here. But I still had to ski it. There was no backing down, no easier alternative. This WAS the easiest line to where we needed to be. My ski partner, Miles, was already almost to the bottom waiting for me. I had to ski it.
I leaned forward, almost doubled over with my chest resting on my poles, planted firmly in the to keep me steady in the wind. I closed my eyes, and tried like hell to clear my head. I started counting. Slowly. 1… 2… By 3, my legs were trembling… 4… 5… 6… I somehow managed to calm my nerves, 7… 8… 9… I tried to force a smile as I stood up and on 10 I opened my eyes, leaned forward, reached my pole in front of me, starting a series of hop turns down the steep slope. Nothing to it. By the time I got close to Miles I was actually having fun again. As the snow softened up a bit more toward the lower end of the narrow chute, I sped up and effortlessly skied out of the couloir and across the Dana Glacier below.
The summit we had just skied from (Dana Peak) marks the boundary for Yosemite National Park on the Tuolumne Meadows side, the road still inaccessible due to the deep snowpack. It is also the second highest peak in Yosemite at 13,061 feet (3,981 m). We had hiked up starting at a parking area near the closed gate that would grant access from Tioga Pass into Yosemite Valley in another month or two, when the plows could finally clear the winter’s snow off the road. The wind had been so horrendous on the ridge-line up, neither of us wanted to enjoy the otherwise sunny day at the summit.
On the opposite face, great spring skiing conditions lead to the top of the Dana Couloir a few hundred feet below the peak. We were excited about the conditions right up until I made the first turn back to the north that rolled into view of the massive rock chute. I nearly skidded out of my ski edge immediately, and moved between some rocks before it got steep. The sun had softened the upper face of the peak, facing southeast, but here in the shade and unrelenting wind, the snowpack was nearly frozen solid. I was suddenly not so excited for the next part. Miles kept his stoke high and effortlessly skied down, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Finally, near the bottom, I knew skiing across the glacier did not mark the end of our day. We were closer to the halfway point. From the basin below Dana Peak, we would ascend once again to Dana Plateau to the North, then ski Ellery Bowl back to our waiting shuttle vehicle below.
Ellery bowl in itself is a worthy objective for a day trip, combining it with the classic Dana Couloir made for a long but incredible day in the backcountry. The remainder of the day went smoothly, and Ellery bowl rewarded our long day with another 1,000 feet of spring skiing, kicked off by a 47-degree drop in from the top.
The steep entrance into the bowl was enough to make me hesitate, but watching Miles effortlessly ski the first section got me amped up and we skied the entire way yelling about how much fun we were having.
After having typed the name so many times, I had to look up who Dana was; James Dwight Dana was a mineralogist – actually, THE mineralogist in the mid 1800’s (he literally wrote the book on minerals, which is still being revised and used in lectures today) – also a volcanologist, zoologist and geologist. He was the most knowledgeable geologist and one of few people with first-hand knowledge of Northern California terrain during the California Gold Rush. Inquires from gold-hungry miners prompted him to publish a “Geology of Mount Shasta” in 1849. In addition to some revolutionary work in mineralogy, James pioneered studies in mountain building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of the world’s continents and oceans. So… Yeah, pretty important guy.
In addition to the mountain, glacier, lake, meadows and plateau near Tioga Pass, he has a number of other things named after him, including: Dana Park in Albany, New York; a passage in the Puget Sound; a horeshoe crab fossil (Euproops danae); a mineral (Danalite); a ridge system on the Moon; and a crater on Mars.