π
2012-02-27 01:01
in Nsnow, Snow
My group had a yearly offsite in South Lake Tahoe. I thought the snow was going to suck, but we got lucky, it just started snowing before we got there.
First, I wanted to thank Caltrans for stopping everyone and forcing them to put chains on to crest 50 when there was virtually no snow at all (barely traces). By forcing people to put chains when they are clearly not needed, in a misguided attempt to prevent accidents by forcing people to drive on asphalt with unneeded chains, you are teaching us that we shouldn't believe you when you say chains are needed. and find ways to bypass/cheat chain control.
Really, not cool guys.
Despite Caltrans' attempts to slow us enough so that we would really be in the middle of the storm, we eventually got to South Lake Tahoe, late for our party (yeah 7H bus ride for a 3H trip).
The next morning, heavenly claimed up to 17 inches (yeah, really?), and even if that was a "slight" exaggeration, they did have a good amount of fresh powder on top of tree trunks and rocks.
very 'small' line of locals
Obviously, the groomers aren't quite my thing, and I'm otherwise not a huge heavenly fan, but I do enjoy the Skyway Glades between sky express and Pinnacles. This was all closed due to lack of snow, even Ellie's was closed still, but I went powder hunting anyway, even if it cost me a bunch of grooves in my board :)
pinacles was still a bit bare
but if you knew where to get your snow...
Milky Way Bowl was better if you hiked to the top of it
Mott and Killbrew were still closed for business...
That evening Maciej and I figured that it would be smart to be in Kirkwood before the next wave of the upcoming storm came, adn he got us to his condo just before the snow started falling harder. This allowed us to enjoy fresh powder with a usable base at kirkwood on Wed morning.
While only cornice was running to the top, they did a good job running it most of the day despite the winds and blizzard like conditions at times. More pow for me, yeah! The best part was that snow on wed, and self filling tracks were quite good and there was virtually no line:
Thursday, everyone, their brother, sister and dog came to kirkwood. By 09:00 when cornice opened, there actually was a bit of a line for first tracks, but nothing too bad. Fantastic snow and self filling tracks all day :)
my coworker Marcin also had transportation trouble that stopped him from getting to work.
Then the wall eventually opened. That also led to a long line :)
but it was worth it :)
Thursday truly was a great snow day, except for the miserable weather :)
On Friday, it was a bluebird with still some powder to be had if you went a bit farther for it. The ski boundary was open towards Emigrant lake, so I took Arturo and Karl there for nice powder that was left over.
Palisades
More Palisades
getting to the ski boundary
and there we were. Plenty of freshies
back for more :)
The 3rd day (yellow) is the only day I was able to go off both ski boundaries on both sides, or for that matter, not ride Cornice almost all day :) but turns out the other 2 days were still the best :)
And that was it. 4 days of the best contiguous snow you could have gotten this year. I got lucky to have a company outing at the right time by sheer luck, and cool coworkers to get me around and host me. Thanks all! |
