π
2010-03-04 01:01
in Nsnow, Snow
|
Day 1 was disappointing. There were 12 to 18 inches of fresh snow and because of poor organization and a stupid bus driver that needlessly stopped us in Auburn for almost 30mn, by the time we got to Squaw there was actually a traffic jam and it took 45mn to drive from hwy 80 to the Squaw entrance (a mere few miles).
It was already 10:30 by the time I made it to the first lift and by the time I got to the top, most powder had been well tracked out by hordes of local who had come that morning. Fairly disappointing :(
The snow was till good, but I sure wasn't swimming in powder like I was hoping. Later that day, the sun got overcast and the melted powder started icing up. Very sad... (and due to the fact that Squaw is way too low altitude-wise).
nice and sunny in the morning, melted the powder
even the back was pretty skied out
Track for Day 1
The next day, I just used to explore the edges of Squaw had had not gone to, espespecially as the main front sucks anyway since you're funneled back to a bunch of flat sections.
Riding Silverado was interesting: the terrain was very challenging since it was easy to get cliffed out and ski patrol didn't go out of their way to mark that side of the mountain. There lots of spots with slopes beyond 60 degrees but leading down to a mixture of ice and rocks :-/ A couple of times I ended up in a not so good spot and had to carefully get out of it.
Thankfully the snow did not ice up on the second day and I got to see most of the edges of Squaw. The one lowpoint was that the bolt holding the back plate of my NXT flow binding came out again, and I wasted close to 45mn doing a field repair. Thankfully I actually had the right tools and a set of the very special screws and bolts required (so I'm not carrying that heavy backpack for nothing :) ).
I took the line down between the gondola and cable car. A bit low on snow, but more scenic and different
Track for Day 2 |
