Winter Trip Suggestions

Prepare for long-winded answer –
First off I'd suggest aiming for late april rather than late march – better weather on average and in some cases better access as well. Late march can be pretty stormy some years.
On the west side your access options are fairly limited.
Carson pass area – plenty of nice skiing but almost all accessible on day trips and thus a fair number of people usually. south of that not much until Badger pass. Thus,Ostrander; and if you want a little solitude you'd go beyond, say over to the Buena Vista Crest which ought to be great but that might be farther than you want to go. If you've been to Ostrander and have made it in comfortably in a day, then another day out to the BV area seems doable and you'll probably have the area to yourselves.
Pear Lake is the next spot south with reasonable access, and the skiing from what I've heard is great.

On the East – Tuolumne will be a slog to get in, most likely you'll have to walk some road on 120 before you get to the snow, unless you can wait until the end of April when the road opens partway to the pass from the east (typically the last Saturday in April for the opening of Trout season). But once you're in there it ought to be great, and also consider the area just east of Tioga pass – Saddlebag lake and environs.

Next stop is Mammoth and if you head out from Mammoth Pass north along the San Joaquin ridge you can get into the Thousand Island Lake area, or from June Lake you can get up into the same stuff.

Past the range you mention but may be worth it – Humphreys Basin Via Piute Pass. A pretty easy ski in to the pass, then a touring paradise once you're there. Take your pick of mellow touring or challenging descents, it's all there. 4 night minimum for that, and if you can swing longer you wouldn't regret it.

Humphreys basin last year in early May:

Do a light, fast, trans-Sierra trip.

Group A starts from the Red Lake turnoff east of Carson Pass, and goes south on the Blue Lakes jeep road. Group B starts from the plowed end of Hwy 4 near the Mount Reba ski area, skiing the unplowed Hwy 4 over Pacific Grade Summit, then turning north. The two groups meet up around Deer Valley, which is sort of the mid-point, for a snow camp. The two groups exchange car keys, then continue in the directions that they were going. Upon reaching the other group's car, the cars are driven to some meeting point to exchange back.

–B.G.–

Paul,
thanks for the great suggestions. I'm going to look into the Buena Vista option further – see what makes sense for route – unless you have a suggestion.

I love the Mammoth area, at least in the warmer months. Need to think about avalanche risk in getting up to the Thousand Island area.

Humphrey's sounds nice, though getting to be a pretty far drive. Not sure where I'll draw the line. It certainly sounds nice to have such a range of terrain.

Simon

Hi Bob,
as always, valuable advice. Key now is to find some others to do the reverse route (be group B). Will run the idea past my buddies.

Is this roughly what you are suggesting?
Will need to put some time in actually selecting a line from the road to Red Lake turn-off, but sketched this in for initial discussion.

The Red Lake turnoff is on Hwy 88, east of Carson Pass, near the bottom of the big hill. I think it is a snowmobile park. Snowmobile tracks will start out to the south, and then you are on the Blue Lakes jeep road. South of Foresthill Divide, you have the Blue Lakes (slightly east of your blue line). Then Deer Valley is somewhat south of there. Sometimes there is a snowmobile track all the way through to Hwy 4 in Hermit Valley, and then it is just a matter of following the unplowed road to the end of the plowed road. I think that there are snow parks for your vehicles, but you need to check.

At the first time that I did this route, we had one slow skier that made problems for the group. At the second time that I did this route, I broke one ski pole the first day, and then the second ski pole the second day, but we still made it out OK. At the third time that we attempted this, one slow skier had terrible problems with climbing skins, and this caused our group to abort. Since our group did not make it to the mid-point meeting, that forced the opposite group to turn around as well.

–B.G.–

Be aware that all of Highway 4 is a popular snowmobile route, so you should expect to see quite a few if you go that way.

Paul makes a good point. Are snowmobiles good or bad?

If it is a pleasant snowy day with good packed snow, then skiers make tracks easy, so they don't need any snowmobile to break trail.

However, if there is new powder, the snowmobile track can save skiers a lot of work. Of course you have to deal with the noise and fumes.

We were starting from the Mount Reba turnoff one time, and we skiers got a few miles up the road before we heard the sound of snowmobiles coming up behind us. We just stepped aside, and several standard snowmobiles with riders zoomed past. Then came this monster snowmobile with a monster man driving it. So, the snowmobile track was twice as deep after he went by. We continued in their tracks for another mile and found them all in a circle around the monster snowmobile. Apparently the monster machine had broken down (I wonder why!), and they were trying to decide how to deal with it. We just quietly skied past them and didn't say a word.

The unplowed pavement of Hwy 4 is obviously not wilderness, so I suppose that they have a right.

–B.G.–