I had been hoping for a powder day in this very lean sierra year. Last night NWS said up to 10" on the higher peaks. When I woke up this morning they had revised it to 1-2" and it was raining here in S Lake Tahoe.. Then it changed to snow and began to come down fast in big flakes. The normal 45 min drive took about 1.5 hrs and I could feel the Suby AWD computer kicking on and off looking for good traction. The chain restrictions were on but nobody there to enforce it, which is typical. Snow stopped just before I arrived, with 3-4" of fairly heavy powder in the parking lot and almost nobody there. I decided to use the teles. The backside wasn't open but the chair to get you to the bottom of the backside lift (#2) yielded 6 runs of silky tele turns, a feeling like no other. Then #4 to the backside opened with its huge expanse of terrain with just a handful of tracks in it. Up high was blown in a foot or so, once getting off the windswept ridge line. It was heavenly. I skied til exhaustion at about 1:30; a totally unexpected and undeserved powder day.
the front apparently dropped all it's powder well after the groomers had gone home, so everything was powder, much of it over a smooth groomed base. What more could you ask?
it's too easy to miss these reports, maybe we should have one 'Denis' Excelent Adventures in Tahoe' thread.
so this was real powder not wet cement ? wonderful. after reading these missives, i'll know my way around the mountain better when i visit again .... only 10 more years to get all the kids out of collge :)
Yep, real powder, not the lightest I've skied but great. Coming down at 1:30 I was enjoying a last set of powder turns just above the flat base area when I went into deep shade and hit the land of crust quicker than you can say, "biff". I laid there laughing with delight for a minute, then took off my skis and walked in for a late lunch.
Denis wrote:
Yep, real powder, not the lightest I've skied but great. Coming down at 1:30 I was enjoying a last set of powder turns just above the flat base area when I went into deep shade and hit the land of crust quicker than you can say, "biff". I laid there laughing with delight for a minute, then took off my skis and walked in for a late lunch.
excellent! We're actually heading over to Lake Tahoe tomorrow and will be there through March 18 - good to know! Will be skiing Heavenly for sure and maybe make it down a little more south to Kirkwood - my Epic pass works there too :-D !
Denis wrote:
Yep, real powder, not the lightest I've skied but great. Coming down at 1:30 I was enjoying a last set of powder turns just above the flat base area when I went into deep shade and hit the land of crust quicker than you can say, "biff". I laid there laughing with delight for a minute, then took off my skis and walked in for a late lunch.
see you Sunday!
