43 posts tagged “snow”
Ski season has finally started at Lake Tahoe, with the openings of Mt. Rose, Heavenly, Northstar-at-Tahoe and Squaw Valley this week. N and I actually had plans to head to Mammoth (which has been open since October), but his asymptomatic manflu reared up again, leaving him with no desire to move, much less drive 2+ hours to ski - especially after a snowstorm left the roads a bit messy, and the mountains with upwards of 6 inches of new snow.
While cynics may claim this is but a dusting, last night's storm brought a few inches of snow to our house at lake level, and the resorts are reporting up to 6 inches.
While the phrase 'El Nino' has been used a lot when referring to this upcoming winter, I've remained cautiously pragmatic. Color me skeptical, but I know how fickle Mother Nature can be, so I like to err on the side of caution.
And don't come back some other day.
This latest storm system has come in wet and warm, a real pineapple express. While a few resorts are crowing about their 'top to bottom snow' (I'm talking to you, Kirkwood), even that's borderline snain/sleet at the bottom of the mountain. Yesterday's foray to Kirkwood was quite the test of our ski clothes waterproofness. My bitchen new Holden jacket held up well, but my beloved Patagonia drop seat pants failed miserably. And with N still fighting this 'malaise' and with me feeling on the cusp of catching it, we didn't stay long. Instead we spent the afternoon re-waterproofing and drying out ski gear. Fun!!
So it's with a bit of nostalgia that I'm looking at my photos from Saturday, when I skied Jake's Peak again with friends (minus N, who was not well enough to slog up 2,000 feet on skis). We hit things early before the clouds arrived, and it was the perfect Tahoe winter day - blue sky, powder snow and sunshine. Even bumped into a friend on the descent (it's kind of a popular backcountry location what with its awesome views and easy roadside access). <sigh>
I know winter will return at least once more. I'd just like to see it stick around longer than a week.
The unseasonable and falsely happy high pressure system that kept us in blue skies and mild temps finally pissed off yesterday. We're now left with gray clouds, mist and some surprisingly clear snow here in South Lake Tahoe. I appreciate the efforts of some to get me snow for my birthday, but this current system backfired slightly. Though I've been told by many it's supposed to cool off and snow levels may even drop to the elevation of our house.
While resorts are reporting new snow (between 3-7 inches depending on who is overstating), it's wet enough here that we're headed to Mammoth, where the higher base elevation (9,000 feet vs. 6,200 feet) should ensure we see snow and not rain on our skis.
Soleil's stoked too, cause she's got a Heavenly bed reserved at the Westin Monache, Mammoth's only luxury hotel that just happens to be dog friendly. It'll compensate for her hanging out in the car while we play in the snow all day.
It's been a hectic week, coming back from traveling and trying to regain some semblance of control at work and at life. A couple of surprises, with such key things like employment and health insurance, added uninvited excitement. Because of this I wasn't all that focused on the snow, but I was surprised at the oddly warm temps we encountered when we got back home. While N kept telling me snow conditions at Heavenly were still wintery in north facing aspects, I found that hard to believe when I was sweating at lake level just walking from my car (though maybe the down jacket, gloves, hat & scarf were overkill).
Since conditions are at that in between stage at anything not north facing (not quite corn and most definitely not winter snow), we had agreed that ski touring was the call for Saturday, if only to get a bit of exercise. N had been trying to ski tour with a friend of his, and he and his girlfriend were free. We don't usually ski tour with others, primarily because of most of our friends either don't live near us or are parents of small children. So it was sort of a novelty to meet and ski with another couple.
We ended up going up towards Emerald Bay to ski Jake's Peak, a mountain at the north end of the bay. We'd skied it once before, but had never done it from the south side. It ended up being a rather athletic climb, as it was steep in places, and firm enough to require either ski crampons (which I had) or experience skinning (which I did not have). Due to the boniness of the originally planned descent, we ended up skiing across the ridge of Jake's to another slope that had more snow, garnering some cool views along the way.
The payoff for the uphill work was on the descent, which was on a slope that appeared to lead directly into Lake Tahoe. That snow conditions were optimal (an inch or two of soft snow on a consolidated base) only made the descent better.
Given my overall ski fitness thus far this season I think I did pretty well. That I was able to go home afterwards and make an awesome chocolate raspberry cake (thanks to Clotilde's book) and a tasty chicken lima bean mushroom stew for friends was the surprising thing. We'll see how early I wake up tomorrow though...
Today is the last day of my holiday ski break, and my legs know it. I've not skied 5 days in a row in a long time, and definitely not 5 full days of powder snow and/or backcountry. Today was the first day that we knew we were not going to have guaranteed fresh tracks, and we had to decide which resort to ski at based upon other factors (distance, crowds and snow conditions). We ended up hitting Kirkwood because today's warmer forecast would have less of an impact at a higher elevation ski resort, and the holiday crowds don't materialize with the same tidal wave force that they do at some other Tahoe resorts.
We did ski Kirkwood on Boxing Day, which was a glorious bluebird day with 2+ feet of light dry powder. N surprised me on Christmas day with new phat skis - Atomic Helis. They're wider than my ski boot in the middle, and are the skis that Alaska heli operators provide clients, so they're perfect for powder.
Today's snow was less powder, more packed powder (with some bumps). Coverage is pretty good on the north facing slopes, and by now many of the hidden rocks are now visible. I enjoyed it, but by midday I was ready to go home and take the much neglected dog for a cross country ski on our nearby meadow. The snow by our house has definitely changed with today's 40 degree temps, and was heavy and wet in most places, making trail breaking a challenge.
And while forecasts are showing a high pressure system moving in this week, we'll be heading north to Bend where snow is falling. After all, I have new phat skis to break in.
Despite a sloow start to the Tahoe ski season, things are off with a bang thanks to a series of snowstorms that just keep giving. And while I've not had good timing this week with my ski breaks, I'm looking forward to better timing tomorrow. It's looking like we'll receive feet-fuls of snow here at lake level, which will translate into feet+ at higher elevations. The current storm is a bit wetter than the previous ones, which should help cover the rocks and other obstacles that are still lurking out there.
Today's brief backcountry sojourn was a bit of a rude awakening for me. I did ok on the actual trip, but right now I am so tired that the notion of baking a brie and slicing a baguette (part of our oh-so-gourmet Christmas Eve dinner) is daunting. Luckily I had the foresight to make the kabocha squash salad beforehand, otherwise we'd just be eating cheese sandwiches tonight.
May your Christmas' be merry and your energy levels higher than mine right now!
On Saturday we went running in the meadow by our house. There was maybe 1/4" of snow then, but it was coold. Too cold to mountain bike, and not enough snow to ski.
How things change. Today we woke up to 6+ inches in the driveway, and it's been dumping light fluffy snow all day. So at lunch we retraced our steps from Saturday, this time on cross-country skis. It was lovely - cold as, but the snow was so light as to make trail breaking much easier than it normally is. The dog frolicked with exuberance, and subsequently passed out for the rest of the day.
And while the Tahoe resorts are filling in (snow reports ranged from 15 - 36 inches around the lake), they started with so little snow that we're going to head back down to Mammoth again this weekend. At least there we know that we can ski off-piste without impaling ourselves on a tree stump.
Last night's cold front brought snow to Lake Tahoe. While only a few inches of wet snow fell at lake level, the local ski resorts received up to a foot, which bodes well for their openings later this month.
This being the first real snowfall of the season, people (as usual) were unprepared. It seems that everyone forgot where their ice scrapers were, as evidenced by the snow on most car rear windows. Oddly enough, many drivers also magically forgot where the lane lines were, as I saw folks driving all over the place. This could be partly due to the ice on the road, but I'll chalk it up to general stupidity. This is, after all, a town that rejected roundabouts because it feared people wouldn't understand how to use them.
Speaking of that, the new snow timed itself nicely with election day (because snowy roads + voting = chaos). While I'm hoping that the U.S. population shows good judgment in their votes today, my outer cynic is not convinced that the combination of voting machine chaos and overoptimistic polls will necessarily result in the projected results. Locally I'm just hoping for a city council candidate that's not a confirmed idiot.
To distract me from the election results tonight, I'm bringing dinner over to a friends house, including Five-Spice "He's not a Muslim" chicken and my grandmother's famous Shiny Top Blueberry "You Betcha" Cobber recipe. Regardless of tonight's outcome, I'm assured of eating well.
