Skiing Mt Lassen

We visited the Miller’s with the plan to go out on the houseboat and for me to ski Shasta, but the weather was pretty uncooperative, with thunderstorms in the afternoons. We arrived Thursday (we had planned on going over Wednesday, but Truckee died Wednesday morning) and I was going to ski Lassen Friday but when I got up all groggy at 6 it was still cloudy so I went back to bed. By 8 it was sunny and remained sunny most of the day so I sulked and grumbled, wishing I had skied.

I was not going to repeat my mistake on Saturday and I left the house shortly after six.

Planning on coming back early so we could go out on the houseboat, I didn’t bring lunch. I was hungry the whole time! I reached the summit ridge around 10 and skied a nice run down the south face and then skinned back up and dropped down the NE face, which didn’t seem as steep as I remembered.

I then skinned back up to the East ridge and after some unnecessary rock climbing and scrambling I skinned up the ridge and then skied across the NE face to the Northwest ridge and as the clouds and hail came on I skied over to the summit ridge.

After chatting with a climber in a hail storm I descended the West face on some perfectly smooth corn. As I came out of the clouds I worried that I was way to far north and started a useless and dangerous scramble across and down the slope, knocking rocks lose with almost every step. I had my skis in my pack and although I didn’t recognize the sound at the time, they were buzzing from the static electricity! I eventually made it back to snow and skied down to where I could have skied to in the first place and traversed back to the car.

When I got back to Redding the sun was out and the boys had just gotten out of the pool (and eventually joined me back in it).

Boy Scout Trip to the South Fork American River

Over the Father's Day (and Summer Solstice, and Darius' Birthday) Weekend I went with Darius an the Scouts to the South Fork of the American River. We got down there Friday evening and enjoyed the pool at the American River Campground before letting the boys serve us dinner. Saturday we got up early and got on the bus to Chili Bar. American River Expeditions (the raft company) was great about shuttling my kayak and letting me join the fun. We did the whole 20+ mile stretch in one day! It was a blast for me to get back on the South Fork after many years. At first I was just a tad nervous, but after running Meatgrinder and then Trouble Maker, I realized it was just all "read and run" fun.

I was able to get a few videos with my helmet cam and they can be checked out here:

American River Rafting

Great Way to Celebrate Dina's Birthday!

Dina's Birthday was yesterday (5/22) and I had the day off. She was kind enough to let me "go play" for the day. And play I did!

I started out the day by meeting Steve up at Alpine Meadows at 7:30, which closed weeks ago, and we skinned up to the top of Ward Peak and then dropped over the back side towards the the Sherwood Bowl chair for two nice, steep corn runs. Then we climbed back up to the top of the peak and skied down to the cars.

Here's Steve heading up:


Here I am up on top of the ridge:


Here's a short run:


After skiing, I drove up over Donner Summit and met Chad, his friend Mike and another kayaker they bumped in to, Buddy, for kayaking the "Summit Run" of the upper South Yuba River (aka Rainbow Lodge run). It's one of my favorite runs, but since I haven't been kayaking much in years, I was a bit nervous. I remember the run pretty well and Buddy knew it cold. It was at a perfect level (bout 650cfs) and dropping in that first rapid from "Hansel and Gretel" bridge was a blast!
Here's a picture of the first rapid from above:



I was concerned about the second big rapid b/c I've seen people get worked in the hole at the bottom, but it went fine. We enjoyed working our way down thsi wonderful "pool and drop" river and I really enjoyed the new line on the big ledge drop that Buddy showed me. Here's the approach and drop:

Chad and I hiked the cascaded above Rainbow Lodge, but Buddy and Mike ran part of it. Impressive! Below Rainbow Lodge, "Double Drop" or "Z Drop" was next. Chad and I had really clean lines on it, and everyone did fine. The whole time I've got the final big drop, "Tombstone", in my mind. Will I run it or not? I've run it every other time I did the river, but... Well, we got down there, I looked at it and I knew my line. What a rush and what a fun rapid!

Here's the drop from below after I ran it:


Here's my run. Unfortunately a big drop of water got on the lens after the first drop.


Now we just had a few little rapids to bop down to the take-out. But lo and behold, Chad and I decide to run a narrow entrance together and we knock each other over. After getting banged up a bit and missing a role I pull the sprayskirt and bail! Oh, the shame of it all. Oh well. Maybe it's just rationalization, but it felt good to "swim" and realize that it's not so bad.

We were famished by the end of the run and enjoyed a beer and sandwhiches. I got home with just enough time to shower, change and go out to a lovely dinner at Lexie's overlooking the Truckee River in downtown Reno with my lovely Birthday Girl.

Getting Warm - harvesting corn before it's too late!

The temps were predicted to hit the nineties here in Reno today and tomorrow (I don't think it quite made it today), but I was determined to get some corn harvesting in. Jon Tay was game as well, so we headed up to the Rose BC with Yuki. We skinned up to the ridge between Incline Lake Peak and Rose Knob Peak and had a great run down towards Third Cr and Tahoe. Then we climbed up to Rose Knob Peak and took a short run down, one more run like the first and then down the other side back to the car. The only time we hit "mank" was getting to the car.

From David's Skiing, Kayaking, Mtn Biking and All Round "Fun Hog" Report

From David's Skiing, Kayaking, Mtn Biking and All Round "Fun Hog" Report

From David's Skiing, Kayaking, Mtn Biking and All Round "Fun Hog" Report

I got home around noon and Dina took off for a "girls weekend" at Northstar. After some yard work, the boys (and Treyson's friend Jayden) had a blast playing in the sprinklers.

Squaw Valley 5-7-09

We finally got some nice weather and I was itching to ski. I had hoped on doing a big back-country day, but it just didn't fall in to place. Luckily I was able to hook up with Justin and comp a ticket for Squaw Valley. We got a bit of a late start but I figured the elevation we gained from the cable car made up for it. After one run down from the lift, we put the skins on and headed up to the summit of Granite Chief.

From May09

We then continued out and down the ridge to the next peak over. There was in incredible cornice and huge slide below it. Just so impressive to look at.

From May09

From May09

The snow was getting very soft, so we skied down the ridge and then carefully dropped down and skied to the bottom of an incredible bowl. An hour climb and were were ready to drop back down to the Shirley Lake lift and ski out.

We finished the afternoon off with a fun little mountain bike ride on Loyd's Loop.

Floriston to Verdi - 5-6-09

The weather is improving, but it's still very windy, so it seemed like kayaking would be a better option than skiing. Luckily Chad and Craig were already planning on boating the Truckee, so I hooked up with them for the run from the top of Floriston to Crystal Peak park. The flows have come down a bit and it was running about 1400cfs at Farad. I took my bigger boat, the Kix, partly b/c I wanted to try it out and partly b/c I wanted to be more stable for "Deadmans" and if we ran "Stateline Dam". The only problem is that a the darn boat leaks, I don't know if it's from the sprayskirt, which fits loosely, or somewhere else, but I had to keep emptying it. Anway, we had a fun run: Floriston was fine, even if I did get turned around in the eddy at the top of Jaws; Deadmans was an easy line, and we walked Stateline. The howling wind and whitecaps just made it more interesting.

May Backcountry with Treyson

I bought Treyson a pair of Alpine Trekkers for his Birthday and we got to try them out today. Unfortunately the weather is rather inclement; we’re having a series of storms come in with pretty high snow levels (~8,000’). It was a mixture of rain, sleet and snow at the parking lot, but we gave it a go anyway. Once we got moving it wasn’t bad. Treyson did well on the climb.

From May09

From May09

It didn't hurt to have Yuki pulling on some of the climbs. We made it about 1,000 feet up and then he was done. The ski down was okay – about 3 – 4 inches of wet snow on a firm base. the views of the valley were interesting, with the clouds and all.

From May09

Trey really started getting the hang of it near the bottom, but then took a nasty fall that hurt his knees. I was worried he blew an ACL, but he’s running around now.