Peavine Mtn Ride

We've been having delightful weather - but we're losing our snow! So
I decided to take advantage of the weather (and Dina's offer that I could take the "day off") to do something I've been wanting to do for a while: ride a loop from the house up the west side of Peavine and back down the east into Keystone Canyon (by way of "the bacon strip") and home. After a couple of false starts, I left the house at ~10:30 and headed west on Mayberry. From there I rode up to Sommerset and "hit dirt" after about 35 minutes.


Then I just rode up the main rode to the top of the "Cow Canyon" ride and kept on going. I hit the pine forest around noon and took advantage of the scenery to stop for lunch.


I finally got a look at the top of Peavine after realizing I had been looking at the false summit for a while. I was surprised by how far I had to go yet.


That's not the summit on the left, the summit is further back.
In the picture on the right you can see the radio towers on the very top of the mtn.







I finally reached the summit a bit before 2pm - 3 1/2 hours after leaving home!








Now it was time for some "screaming downhill", but I wanted to be sure to catch the "Bacon Strip", so I ended up stopping a lot to check out my position (as best I could). I even ended up riding back up the mtn about 20 minutes to find my best shot at hitting the right road. But I did find it and then enjoyed some wonderful single-track back out to McCarran. I met another mtn biker, John, who offered to take this picture:



Looking back up I was amazed at how fast I dropped vertical, and how fast the day was slipping by.










I got home just after 4pm, almost 6 hours out, 31 miles and 5100 vertical feet. And I came home to find my trusted dog waiting for me.












The loop:

Day 2

November 9th, 2008.

My second day out skiing - both "backcountry". Actually they've both been in the East Bowl of Mt. Rose Ski Area, but pre-season and we "earned our turns". My folks arrived Friday, but I still got the “green light” for a little skiing today. I met Dick, Eric, Jeff Dean and Steve Weiss at the Starbucks at 9:00 and we headed up to the Hourglass parking lot. After a bit of discussion we decided to go back to the East Bowl and although it was not nearly as good (or as sunny) as Wednesday, we still enjoyed it. And this time I brought Yuki! We also did about 40 minutes of beacon practice, which really demonstrated we need to practice multiple burials more.

Not a bad start to the 2008 - 2009 ski season

November 3rd, 2008

We got a one-two storm punch with over a foot up in the mtns so I arranged to start my work day (Hospital Attending) at 10 so that I could ski. I met Dick, Eric and Scott Tyler at the Galena Starbucks at 5:30 and we were skiing up the East Bowl by 6:00.

The snow was surprisingly light and deep enough that we avoided most of the rocks. We took 1 run on Bonanza and then 2 on Silver Dollar.














David's Turns


Scott's Turn(s)


Up top it looked like winter!














After a morning like this, it wasn't so bad going to work! :-)