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.