It's hard to believe the ski season is only about six weeks away. About time to start getting the skis ready, and of course, watch some powder skiing from last season...



This is footage from March 17,19,21 and 26, 2011. I had to cut out a lot of decent powder skiing footage because it was getting repetitive. Here's hoping we have the same problem this season!

March Recap and Skiing in June

Well, the blog sort of trailed off in March. This was mainly because my shin injury, courtesy of a Heavenly cat track and my own Powder-mania, ended up being much longer lasting than I thought it would be. I was able to ski some, but I had to take it much easier than normal. So that ended up putting a damper on the skiing for much of March.

Still, we did get some good days in. March was an epic storm month, capping off a record-breaking season. I took a few pictures at the end of March, trying to capture just how much snow there was up at Kirkwood.

Patrol had to dig out under chair 10.

The same location in November versus March.

Here's some footage I posted in mid-March on vimeo but never blogged:



I think I have some more good footage from late March, but I think I'll save it to play with in the Fall when I'm getting excited for next season.

Finally, after not skiing in April or May at all, I got to do one last day on snow for the season, hiking Pyramid Peak on June 4. It was drizzling rain and bare at the start, a wet snowstorm at the top, and the skiing was admittedly less than spectacular. Still: skiing in June! I thought it was worth recording:



I think I ended up around 25 days for the season (not counting days like 3 runs at Heavenly, but counting backcountry days). Right around what I did the last two seasons. Hopefully I'll up that next season and also be able to get into the backcountry a little more.

Bottomless powder 2/16-18

The return to snow in Tahoe fulfilled everyone's wildest dreams, with approximately 12 feet of snow recorded at Kirkwood from Tuesday to Saturday.

After 6 powderless weeks Lauren and I were eager to get after it, so we headed up Tuesday night, planning to ski Wednesday to Friday. The snow started late Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning there was already a good foot plus on the ground in Meyers.

Wednesday morning.

We headed to Heavenly with Drew and Jason. On the third run I came up on a cat track too fast and tried to check my speed by leaning back (bad decision). I ended up landing hard on my tails on the flat and banging my shins and calves around in my boots. I spent the rest of the day icing them in the lodge, which gave me plenty of time to do a light edit of the helmet cam footage from the little bit of skiing that happened:



I ended up taking the next day off, but was able to ski a good part of the day Friday, taking it pretty easy on my shins.

Friday morning.

Chair 10 open Friday at Kirkwood: 8 feet new snow up top.

I got a couple good clips Friday, but I'll save those for another time. Perhaps next week when my legs will be fully recovered and ready for the next big storm.

Mount Tallac 2/12

Saturday, I finally tried out my AT setup on a real hike. Pascal recently got a set of new skis and suggested hiking Mount Tallac ("Tuh-LAK"), just outside South Lake Tahoe. At 9735 feet, Tallac is the highest peak on the Southwest shore of the Lake, making the hike about a 3200 foot elevation gain. Being that the last snowfall was maybe a foot on January 30th with it being generally sunny and warm ever since, we weren't expecting any great snow conditions. However, I figured the hike and view would be nice, and it would be good practice hiking with skins.

After a few tries finding the right trail head, and getting our gear in order, we started off around 10am. I quickly stripped down to a T-shirt, as the temperature at lake level was on its way past 50 degrees.

Pascal on his way up.

We ended up skiing this couloir, sticking to the North-facing aspects. The peak itself is hidden here, behind the prominent peak.

I learned pretty quickly that skins can be frustrating on steep terrain, or when snow sticks to them, or in particular, both of the above. I'm sure I'll enjoy encountering many different snow conditions that cause skins to work less well, but one of them seems to be a combination of wet and dry snow. The wet snow excellently prepares the skins to adhere to the drier snow, after which one slide backwards downhill. This is usually something I prefer to do without skins.

Taking a break and drying the skins out in the sun.

That said, most of the time they worked, and were of course indispensable where the snow was too deep to walk in. But, once we got onto a steep ridge line where the snow was firm enough to walk on, I found it much easier to simply hike with my skis on my back.

With the slow-moving sections, it took us about 5.5 hours to reach the summit. The view was great, as promised.

360 degrees. Click for bigger.

Pascal, chllin.

We started down around 4pm. Once we got down to treeline and the more North-facing aspects, the snow was shockingly good. "Powder" seems like a bit of a stretch, but it is probably the best word to describe it. Perhaps 12 day old powder but powder nonetheless. Venturing into the open center of the bowl, however, yielded a nice ice-scraping sound. The descent looked something like this (as always, click to vimeo for the HD version):



We've finally got new snow coming, starting on Tuesday with 3-5 feet forecast through Saturday. Looking forward to some legitimate powder.

Juneuary 1/21-23, 1/28-29

January has been a rough month for California skiing. There has been essentially no snow from New Year's day until January 30th, when a storm finally snuck into the region behind the back of the persistent ridge off the West Coast. I'll leave it to the weather bloggers to discuss why it has been so dry and why it will continue for at least the next 10 days. We've been making the best of the Spring-like conditions: crusing the groomers, the park, semi-soft/semi-ice bumps, and hiking around a bit.

Friday and Saturday (1/21 and 1/22) were nice and warm. Saturday we left Kirkwood early and Owen, Jen and I hiked above Caples Lake to have lunch and build a little jump to play around on.

Saturday 1/22: Jump above Caples Lake

 

Troy

Crashing

Troy 3

Bringing back the '90s

Sunday was less warm, and nothing ever really softened. It did remind me of ice-sliding on the East Coast though, so that was nostalgic.

Sunday 1/23: Cold and icy at Kirkwood.

The next weekend Owen and I headed back up for more spring skiing, this time with a new wide-angle camera:

We headed back to Caples Lake, this time being a little more ambitious in our jump construction:

It was perhaps a little bit too big for our jumping skill set, but we made the best of it, and had a really nice sunset...

Finally, I had a good time experimenting with the timelapse features of the new camera. Click the "vimeo" link to watch in HD.

Learning about avalanches 1/8

Owen and I have been talking about getting into the backcountry over the past year and of course, a key part of the backcountry is avalanche safety. So, in addition to acquiring the basic gear (transciever, probe, shovel), we also took an introductory course at Kirkwood this past Saturday.

Kirkwood offers a series of avalanche courses; this one was the most basic, with a couple hours in the classroom, about an hour using equipment in the snow, and another hour+ on the slopes. The more advanced courses (AAIRE level 1 and AAIRE level 2) are 3 days and 4 days each, and really get into the details of evaluating avalanche danger and trip planning. This course was meant to be an introduction to a lot of the information in the more advanced courses, focusing on being aware of the dangers and warning signs and how to use the equipment to perform a rescue. However, they managed to provide a base of terminology knowlege that will be really useful when reading more in depth info. The Sierra Avalanche Center provides a lot of useful information based on in-the-field observations of snowpack. Having some basic terminology helps in reading the reports and getting a better feel for what snow conditions present what dangers.

Headline report from the SAC. Conditions are quite safe right now, due to lack of recent snowfall.

 We did a real-life scenario where the instructors had pre-buried avalanche beacons. Without telling us ahead of time, we suddenly had to locate and dig up the beacon. It was a great experience to have something a little closer to what a real-life scenario might be like. Owen and I are looking to take the level 1 course for a more complete understanding.

Snow-wise, it was a good day to be spending time in the classroom since it hadn't snowed in the past week. We got a run in before the clinic and then five more after. Even though there wasn't any powder, the snow was actually quite good in places, mainly because it has been so cold and the January sun hits the snow for only a short period of time during the day.

The bumps under the liftline and on Olympic were good, at least by Kirkwood standards. That means there would be maybe 5 turns in a row before you had to change lines.

Looking forward, Northern California looks to stay in a storm drought for at least the next week. After the crazy November and December we had, we're having a really dry January. Right now, the Jet stream is focused to our North, pushing storms into the Pacific Northwest. However, there's hope that things will turn around for at least the last week of the month and the storm door will open again for us.

New Year's 12/31 - 1/1

We drove up to Kirkwood on the morning of New Year's Eve. Since the last time we were up two weeks ago several more storms had come through. Since Christmas alone there's been another four feet, and Kirkwood reports 340 inches so far this season, almost entirely in the last 40 days. There's more snow on the ground than I've seen in any of the past 3 seasons.





88 East to Kirkwood 12/31/2010 from Kyle on Vimeo.  

Lauren and I skied with Owen on Friday, New Year's Eve. The previous day was a powder day, so the snow was quite good and there were still fresh tracks to be had with a little bit of a hike. Despite having a fairly bad cold, Owen convinced me to hike far out in the Palisades. As usual though, it was totally worth it.

Looking back on Kirkwood.

That night we stayed in a cabin off the grid, a half mile snowshoe in from the road across from Kirkwood. I got to try out my skins, which worked well but are a little slower less manouverable than snowshoes.

Ready for the hike in.

Approaching the cabin, alongside the lake.

Snow up to the second story of the cabin.

Owen snowboarded off the roof the night we got there.

The wood-burning stove actually did heat up the place a bit.

Lauren, fully bundled.

I wasn't the happiest camper the next morning...

It had snowed another 6 inches or so by New Year's morning, making for a solid powder day. I woke up pretty sick after a cold night in the cabin, but after some drugs and food, I managed to suck it up and ski some powder.