Tuesday, December 15, 2009
What a week it has been.
It has been a pretty incredible week in Lake Tahoe. With 2 consecutive 3 plus foot dumps the mountains around here have just been getting plastered. We've gone from icy groomers with very little open to full on mid season conditions, in places, in a matter of just a little over a week. Yesterday, not only did KT-22 spin for the first day of the season, but Alpine Meadows also managed to open the ridgetop hikes out to Beaver, Estelle, and Bernies bowls. The skiing was off the hook to say the least, and the uncrowded slopes and liftlines made for all day freshies for everyone in attendance. It felt pretty good to step into my Elan Boomerangs for the past few days and charge around the mountain on my big skis with little to no more fear of hitting tons of rocks. While I completely forgot to put on my helmet cam for just about every run, I managed to strap it on once for the short clip you see here. Those GoPro helmet cams are so small that sometimes you forget that you even have it with you.
Today we branched out in search of variety and some more pow for the skiing. We ventured up the street from my house and hiked up to Grouse Rock and into Ward Valley. With high ridge top winds and grey skies dominating for most of our tour we rethought our objectives for the day and focused on lower more sheltered slopes. Many of the natural avalanches that occured during the storm cycle are still very evident, especially on East/Northeast aspects. While nothing really seemed to be moving at the resort yesterday the evidence of natural slides was a little disconcerting especially with the weak layer down near the ground. Finding it a little hard to believe that all that new snow has bonded up tight we tentatively made some ski cuts, and then pretty much went for it.
The consistency of the snow has definitely changed a little overnight. It has become more dense and compacted as well as being wind affected in some areas, and sun crusted on south facing slopes. We decided to lap it up on an sheltered East/Northeast facing slope for optimum powder conditions. Here's my buddy, and unofficialsquaw Kick Ass Blaster, Mike Vaughan finding a nice pocket of fresh on his first turn.
And a few turns later opening it up by the spiny rocks that make up the features of this area.
After hours of hiking around and skiing more pow we were finally chased out of the woods by the dwindling daylight, not that we could see all that well today anyway. In any event, lines in the backcountry are at a super fun low-tide level with more features than usual. Now is a good time to get out and explore and find some great early season stashes for yourself. As far as we could tell, the snow is locked up tight just about everywhere, so go on out and get some. For more information on local avalanche conditions check out: http://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/
Labels: Alpine Meadows, backcountry skiing, Backcountry Tahoe, Elan Boomerang, Jeremy Benson, KT-22, Powder Skiing
Porters TahoeNICE WORK BENSON!!!
Nicky B son, aka Turka LurkSick JB, nice line by the way too.
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Oh yess Benson...The view over to Alpine was quite nice from KT....Glad u got some too.