4 posts tagged “laketahoe”

Last night we went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at Sand Harbor with friends.  While I was looking forward to the champagne & picnic dinner on the shores of the lake, I was also looking forward to heckling the dog that stole the role of Starveling's pet from Soleil. Alas, to my surprise there was no dog in the performance.  I'm not sure what happened to the non-plussed schnauzer, but I was disappointed.  I was hoping to disrupt the dog's concentration.

As it was I had enough champagne early on to quell any strong desire to get all medieval and avenge Soleil's 'honor'.  C'est la vie.  Lucky for N, as he didn't have to suffer the embarrassment of me getting kicked out of a Shakespeare performance.

With the forecast for today to be wet snow (r**n) and high winds, we decided to give our favorite tree skiing frontcountry tour a go, since it was higher elevation and sheltered (I didn't have much hope in Kirkwood's ability to run lifts in this weather, considering they weren't able to run lifts during a recent sunny holiday weekend!).  I'm not sure what happened with today's storm that was supposed to blow in wet and heavy, but the only thing we saw on our two lap jaunt was wind and the start of snow on the second lap.  

We did a bit of this.

So the dog could enjoy the powder, as she's as much of a snow addict as we are.

Conditions were surprisingly good.  While the snow was surprisingly light - and knee to thigh deep, there was a solid enough base underneath to make the skin up efficient.  And we were one of the few people out there. Overall a fantastic day.  And it's dumping outside right now, supposed to continue all day tomorrow.    Hmm...is that the flu I feel coming on?

No, it's not a snowstorm I'm preparing for.  It's President's Day weekend starting tomorrow, and all the recent snow + good weather + 3-4 days off means that a majority of the Bay Area and beyond are likely to descend upon Lake Tahoe for skiing and snow play madness.  So I'm going to make sure I have enough food, water, batteries, gas and movies to survive the next couple of days.

Since the snow started falling, we've been talking about getting out into the backcountry, but the back to back storms and time off didn't synchronize until this weekend.  Never mind that we're now seeing a high pressure system that's more akin to spring (50 degrees during the day, teens at night), we were on a hunt for winter snow, also known as powder.

So we headed up to a tried and true north facing slope we know well. My expectations were low, but I was out there primarily to get exercise and test my new birthday gift.

There was already a skin track, but N used his phat skis to bust some alternate routes and widen the existing track.

It's 1,700 feet uphill, give or take, mostly in the trees.  Treeline ends just before the summit, where we were rewarded with 360 degree views.

The dog, who we brought along for the first lap, was unimpressed.
No photos of the descent, but the snow was surprisingly unaffected by the ridiculous post-snowstorm temperatures.  It was so good we decided to go back up again, this time without the dog.  She wasn't too thrilled by our attempts to protect her hips, but seeing as she was really slow on the descent (something about having to swim through the snow we skied on top of), we didn't want to be held back.  Good call, too, as the snow at the bottom the second time round was a tad bit grabbier, thanks to the warming temps.  Still a fabulous day out however.  And a great way to celebrate the BF's birthday.