Bear Butte and Rancheria Falls

Trailhead: Rancheria Falls

Elevation: 8512 ft

Route: FS Road

Difficulty: Easy backcountry ski

There's very little information about backcountry skiing on the western side of the sierras. All that shows up on a google search is an old supertopo thread that is now defunct. After the big snow this year we went out exploring the hills around the China Peak ski area. Just beyond the ski area is a trailhead that contains parking for a few vehicles. A forest service road leads east and provides access to both bear butte and Rancheria falls.

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Either the skiing on the west side is bad (unlikely, since the skiing just 20 miles to the east is Mammoth Mountain, which is fantastic), nobody skis out of Fresno (maybe) or the local skiers are very tight lipped, but there's nothing comprehensive available online regarding the wild snow out here.

Hopefully I don't upset people by talking about it (locals only! bro!) but the skiing out of the rancheria falls trailhead is delightfully fun storm/powder day skiing with reasonable access out of FresYES.

Out of the parking lot, we skied up the plowed (and kinda groomed?) forest service road. We passed the turnoff heading left towards Rancheria Falls (although I later went back and skiied to the frozen falls, which are worth a visit themselves.) About 2 miles up the road a ski track turned obviously up the little nubbin that is bear butte.

Fresh powder sitting in the trees

Atop Bear Butte there are excellent views of China Peak to the north and Huntington lake to the west. Bear butte is very petite, but we found good powder on the northern aspect. The best part was skiing down to the parking lot, cutting the switch backs through the trees. Due to the nature of the terrain the powder had formed these almost-pillows but definitely big fun bumps that were delightful to either weave through or ski over depending on how confident one was about the state of the snow depth.

We didn't hit any rocks though and woo-hoo'd our way back to the car. The hardest part of the day was getting our car out of the tiny pullout, as we were very nearly blocked in by about half a dozen pickup trucks full of tailgating Fresno'ans, a couple of which had full sized barbecues in the bed. Apparently snow tailgating is great sport in Fresno.