Wind Affected Snow

Joe and I went back out today after an incredibly windy day yesterday (I went to Mt Rose w/Treyson and we had a blast despite the 85mph wind gusts - no kidding, I checked). We decided to ski the north runs off "Sunshine Knob" thinking they'd be the most protected. We only did two runs, one off the SW knob and one off the NE knob. There was a set of tracks in Dick's Crack, but we skied it anyway and then headed right in to the trees. Dean's Dive was windblasted so we went over to the next chute, which wasn't any better until we got into the denser trees. The beautiful weather made up for it a bit though, it was nice just be be out there.

We dug a pit on our climb up from Dick's Crack and found two meters of very dense, consolidated snow, but that same rotten layer (see prior post) on the bottom. But it would take a LOT to get it to go.

Price Ridge Powder

Yesterday I planned to ski w/Joe and Steve, but when I got to the meeting place, Dick, Mary and Hans were there too - so we discussed plans for a big tour. We decided to check out the possibility of skiing down to Davis Cr Park. When we got there we were worried about the (lack of) snow, but decided to drop two vehicles there and then drove up to Tahoe Meadows for a ski out Price Ridge.

Here's a view of Slide Mountain and the Ophir Cr drainage. Our planned decent would be on the looker's left of Ophir Cr.
Getting started:


There was a pretty nasty wind up there, but luckily it was behind us (coming from the north). After heading down the meadow a ways, we stopped in the trees to regroup.

We took a pretty direct line up to the high point of Chickadee Ridge and then up to the top of Price Peak. I stopped on the open slope up to Price Peak to dig a quick "mini-pit" which showed pretty good stability (compression test didn't fail at all). Up top we were in pretty dense clouds/fog and I got a bit disoriented so we ended up skiing our first run down the bowl to the south of the ridge, rather than down the steeper north slopes. Probably not a bad call for the first run though.

Here's my first try using my new helmet cam while skiing. It really doesn't capture the pitch of the slope, but hopefully it captures the fun!


From here we went back up to the ridge, got our bearings and skied a couple runs down the nicely gladed and steeper north pitches.
Hiking up:

Mary had some skin problems (ski skins) so we met up at the bottom of the steep "mini-bowl) at the edge of the ridge, just above Upper Ophir Cr.



We then traversed south to begin our tour down to Davis Cr, but after re-analyzing the snowpack the group reluctantly decided we didn't have enough snow to make the trip worthwhile. Unfortunately Hans had to get back early for a dinner party (or "hot date", we couldn't get out of him), so he, Mary and Dick headed back to the cars at the Meadows, while Joe, Steve and I went up for more skiing.

After reaching the ridge, Steve decided to dig a pit while Joe and I took another run. When we got back to him, I was impressed by the pit he dug.
Here's Steve skiing a nice little pitch.

The snowpack was about 1 1/2 meters deep and pretty solid until the very bottom. The first ~4 inches is terrible TG "sugar snow". Fortunately no matter how hard I jumped I could not make that layer release (modified Rutschblock). I would still recommend caution on steeper slopes though. We took one more run and then contoured north back to the car just as it was getting dark.



Steve had a bottle of "fortified" soy eggnog waiting for us. As Joe said, it was like "a blanket in a bottle".

It turns out we skied and climbed just over 5,000 feet and a bit under 7 1/2 miles.

Fat Powder, Big Tour

The storms are coming in a nice pattern and after getting another couple of feet of cold, light snow, it cleared up today. After a 7:30 meeting at work I had the rest of the day off and met Hans and Justin for a tour. We met another guy at the parking lot who asked if he could join us and of course we welcomed him for the skin up to Hourglass. As we walked up he told me he does a lot of backcountry skiing, but later he admitted to not carrying a shovel or owning a beacon. Hmmm.

Turns out he hooked up with someone else up top while were were digging a pit on the right (North facing) ridge of Hourglass. The snow is still only a few feet deep, but it was more stable than I expected. The compression test went unevenly after 24 taps (4 from shoulder) and on the shovel shear test it seemed to go at the new/old(er) interface and again unevenly. The modified Rotschblock showed similar results.

Hans really wanted to ski the other side of Hourglass, so our pit was not as predictive of where we skied as I would have liked. But the line was great. No sluffing or whoomping and the powder was "five star" with true face shots.

Of course Hans just had to get the first tracks (always good to have an avy poodle!).


Justin was next to go.



At the bottom of Hourglass we met another skier, Lynn, and welcomed her to join our tour. The run down Hourglass was so good that we decided to go back up the skier's left ridge (SE facing). A quick pit near the top showed slightly less stable snow, with a release after 14 taps. The bonding with the old layer near the ground was surprisingly stable (as it was in the first pit). But we decided to move on and headed in to Broken Glass, which was untracked.


Having decided on a "Tour" earlier on, we next headed over across the Galena Creek meadow and went up Houghton to the East facing bowls. Once again we found excellent powder. Here's me taking a run.


Lynn went next.


It was now around 1:30 and I just realized that I'm on-call at 5pm, giving me a little anxiety about our planned next leg: traversing over to the Mt Rose Shoulder and dropping in the Glades. But Hans was gong-ho and off we went. Unfortunately we had a miscommunication and Justin and I did the long traverse around the south facing side while Lynn followed Hans up to the saddle between Church's Peak and Mt Rose. It was quite a slog over to the shoulder! We went a tad too high and got stuck in shallow snow and rocks a couple of times, but eventually we made. But no sign of Hans and Lynn!
Justin nearing the end of the slog.
By now the storm clouds were collecting over the west side of Tahoe.

We thought we heard Hans and Lynn holler back down below, so off we went as the afternoon was wearing on.

Justin kicking up the pow:


We saw Hans' and Lynn's tracks part way down the Glades (they took more of a traverse across from the Rose/Church's saddle) and caught up to them at the footbridge over Galena Cr. From there it was a short and mellow skin to the top of Sky Tavern and then a fun ski down to the road and Hans' car. We quickly jumped in and drove up to parking lot where there were still 2 other cars besides ours.

I made it back down the hill by 5:15 and fortunately didn't have to rush in to the hospital! Another great day in the backcountry. Great snow, phenomenal weather and good friends (and a new friend). As I drove home, however, I thought about some of the decisions we made along the way with a little bit of discomfort. Actually, along the tour Justin and I talked about some of our "mistakes". Luckily none of them cost us anything (other than my anxiety about work and not knowing where the other 2 were). I guess I'm just going to continue working on better communication and "slowing down" - even when the powder is hollering at me.

First Day with "The Boys"

We got a little break in the weather, so Treyson, Bridger and I went up to Mt Rose (Darius was warehousing food for the shelter w/the Boyscouts). It took Bridger a few turns to get his "ski legs" back, but Treyson was immediately in the groove. And he loved being able to show Bridger a few tricks! The both skied great and we had a wonderful time.
Sorry, no pictures - I took a couple on my phone, but it won't send them (even after 30 minutes w/Verizon "help").

Big Fluffy Dump!

Winter has finally arrived around Tahoe! We're being visited by an artic low that's bringing multiple "pulses". The first big pulse dropped over two feet up in the mountains (a bit more than predicted) and a few inches down here. I lucked in to having yesterday (Thursday) morning off and I hooked up with Jon Tay, Dick Benoit, Eric Martin and Jeff Dean. Then we met John Swanson (ER Doc) and Janet (ER nurse) up at the parking lot. There were more coming in their group so we decided to try to meet up later. There was a nice skin track to the top of Hourglass and the weather was COLD but gorgeous.


We were "Jonesing" to go once we got up top, even more so watching a boarder drop in. So we stripped skins and got read to go.

One at a time, we dropped in to the fluff.





Of course we should have done it before our FIRST run, but we did dig a pit and check out the snow before our second run. We found a surprisingly solid snowpack requiring approximately 20 taps (elbow slaps) before breaking. And it broke unevenly w/o a real layer. We also did a "three sided rutschblock" which took two jumps with full weight to get it to go, and then it went at the new/old snow (almost ground) interface with an uneven "crumbling".


After three runs in Hourglass, we met up with John and Janet again so Jon and I headed out to the top of Proletariat with them for our final run. Janet and Jon both had skins pop off (it was so cold the glue wasn't sticking well for all of us). The coverage was excellent, but you could still hit the rock band just below the top of the bowl. John dropped in first and warned me about the rocks, so I just "straight lined" over them and barely got a scratch! (at least not there)



There were some rocks at the bottom that caught the guys. Janet checked her bottoms to see what all the fuss was about.

All in all a great morning!

Hole in the Ground Mtn Bkie

Here it is, December 13th, and 2 days ago Greg and I went up to Donner Summit to MOUNTAIN BIKE!! What's with that? To add to the craziness, we parked in the Boreal Ski Area parking lot and watched (mainly) boarders head to the "slopes" which were just a strip of man-made snow. Well, the ride was GREAT! We had a little snow on climb up to the top of Andesite Peak and just a bit more on the descent. Then we had great conditions with no dust and minimal mud. It warmed up nicely, but the trail was still frozen in most places giving us a great surface to ride on. We did hit enough snow that we had to walk a bit after the first lake, but the walking was never too far. It was a great ride, but I hope it's the last Tahoe ride of the season. In fact it snowed a little bit last night and more is on the way (so "they" say).