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.