May 9-11, Royal Basin/Deception Basin, ONP (Video)

I've wanted to explore Royal Basin on a splitboard ever since I hung out in that basin extensively as a wilderness ranger a couple summers ago. The recent trip reports from Radka and Kamtron solidified my stoke to check out Royal Basin and Deception Basin with a good snow pack.

We ended up camping in the upper basin, and even found a huge flat dry rock to camp on that was east facing with running water a few steps away. Some of the most luxurious "snow camping" i've ever done.

We found excellent skiing on all aspects, particularly N aspects in the mid to late afternoon. Our initial plan was to ski the NE chute on Deception but with a huge runnel right down the gut we opted to find some smooth snow on Hal Foss Peak. The N face of Hal Foss skied so awesome we got two laps on it, than returned for a few more laps back in Royal. On our final day we skied the SE chute off Mt Clark in great corn, and than skied off the most prominent N facing line in Royal Basin east of Mt Deception, some of the best turns of the whole trip!

This is an amazing zone to go ski, its worth the walk, especially since that drainage is so beautiful!

Check the video out!

https://vimeo.com/166880423