Waterhouse Peak 1-28-09

The sky cleared up yesterday and we're back to our lovely blue sky California (and Nevada) weather. It sure is beautiful, but we really need MORE STORMS!

Tuesday Justin Winter and I led a mid-day workshop on Wilderness Medicine and had a lot of fun building sleds and splints with about 25 participants. After demonstrating in the classroom we went outside and the participants built three sleds and "raced" each other. It was great fun!
Starting off inside:

Then building sleds outside and testing them:
We finished up around 2:00, not enough time to ski Heavenly (and use a lift ticket), so I went out to a the High Meadows Trailhead for a tour on my fishscale pattern skis. After touring out the snow covered fire road a ways I couldn't resist climbing up Trimmer Peak at least part way. The views were great, but since I started at 6500 feet, the snow was a few inches of "dust on crust". So I carefully skied back to the trail and then back to the truck.


Wednesday was another blue sky day and my workshop (critically reading the medical literature) didn't start until 2:15, so I left Harrah's around 7:00 and headed out to a "local's favorite" Waterhouse Peak. I've heard it holds great powder, but have never skied it before.

Looking across "Grass Lake" as I started out:

There was an obvious and well used skin track heading out from the parking area, but as I climbed I was getting concerned about how cut up and heavily skied the slope was. Up top I had great views all around: north to Lake Tahoe, west and south to Red Lake Peak, northeast to the Desolation Wilderness.

I decided to follow some tracks south, to the skier's right. They led to a less heavily skied area and I was able to then cut under a rock band (didn't want to ski above it!) to an incredible untracked paradise. The rock pillows were so numerous and inviting that I even jumped a few of them.

Looking back at the bowl:


I headed back up and after chatting with a couple, Jay and Christine, I skied through the glades to the left (west) of the heavily tracked out area. I didn't have to go far to get some untracked snow.
Here's a dead tree I thought looked interesting:
It was so good that I went back up for a final lap. I was warned that staying left would lead me away from the truck and make for a slog back. So about 400 vertical feet above the truck I contoured over and was able to easily ski right to the parking area.

I'd say it was one of the best days I've had out there!

These two short videos really don't do justice to the quality of the snow.