First powder weekend - Jan 21 - 24

I got to ski Saturday through Tuesday and it exceeded all expectations. We had no base, and the storm only turned from rain to snow on Friday night at midnight. Even still, we were skiing off trail by Saturday morning all over the mountain at Alpine. Two more waves came through later and by Monday morning there was good coverage, even on the deck at the cabin.

Monday morning at the cabin.

Some of the results from the weekend.

I only took a couple photos and had the camera on for a single run at Alpine on Monday, so here it is:

December - Bare skiing in CA and tree skiing in VT

The blog is back!

It's January 18 and the mountains in CA are still bare: I wouldn't have thought it possible. In the dry December we had, I kept telling everyone that it would definitely snow by around New Years... this always happens where it doesn't snow for most of December and then it dumps at the end. I just ended up being about a month off.... We're finally getting snow (or maybe rain?) starting tomorrow:

(Even a little love for the Northeast as well?)

As with the past three ski seasons, Lauren and I made sure to start this one off on completely man-made snow at Squaw, December 10th:

If the horror stories I hear about Squaw crowds are true, this is the best parking space I'll get all season.

Completely bare valley.

I'd never skied Squaw before. It being a bigger "resort" than Kirkwood, I was hoping they would be a little better with snowmaking to get terrain open in a dry year like this. Not so much. Five or six weeks later, they still have about the same two runs open.

There was more pow skiing to be had in Vermont at Jay Peak, December 30th:


Of course this video isn't as good as this one which includes ICE!