17 posts tagged “winter”

October typically marks the beginning of the ski film season, when filmmakers of all winter persuasions (telemark, alpine, snowboard) take their shows on the road, fueling the winter lust of die-hard skiers like me.  This weekend brought a double whammy of telemark films, including the newest film from the Powderwhores, a Utah based collection of rippin' backcountry telemark skiers.  

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.

Stop walking in my freshly cut cross-country ski tracks. It ruins it for me when I try to ski back in what now resembles the aftermath of a bull run, forcing me to cut a completely new track thanks to your retardedness. 

Isn't the point of snowshoes to make YOUR OWN tracks? If it's really that difficult for you then maybe you SHOULDN'T be ruining it for the others. 

Thanks for getting your head out of your ass.  Oh, and while your at it, stop letting your dog crap in the tracks as well.  

Sincerely,

TG

Actually, winter came back to Tahoe last week, and has stuck around a bit longer this time.  Today was the first proper bluebird sunshine day we've had in nearly a week, and I'm guessing a ton of people called in sick today to ski.  I prefer storm days for the relative lack of crowds (and free refills) so I hit Sierra-at-Tahoe yesterday morning to 'product test' the 10 or so inches of new snow.  It, like many of the Tahoe ski resorts, saw 5 feet of new snow over the past 7 days.  

I've learned that it's essential to make the most of the snow when it comes because it's never guaranteed when the next storm will be.

However in this case there is more snow forecast for this weekend, so I'll be keeping my phat boards in easy reach.  

Um, not much actually.  Four resorts are open (Heavenly, Squaw, Mt. Rose and Northstar-at-Tahoe if you want to know), but that's primarily due to their awesome snowmaking capabilities versus any bounty from Mother Nature.  This week's forecast doesn't look all that promising either.

Mammoth, on the other hand, has been open since November 1st, and now has 10 or so lifts running with snow on parts of the mountain that snow guns can't reach.  So it resembles winter there.  It's a difference of night and day, and since we have Mammoth season passes and since gas is now stupid cheap, guess which resort is the more appealing option? Yep.  I drove down this morning for my 3rd ski day of the season, to meet N who was driving up from San Diego.  That dark o'thirty wake up call was so worth it in the end.

It was a real ski day, with top to bottom runs on varied snow (moguls, wind buff, groomers) that went beyond just the designated runs.  After nearly 6 hours of using gravity, I was pretty wiped out.  The drive home wasn't something I relished, but I kept reminding myself that my only option at Tahoe was one resort with two runs open.   That made the nearly 300 mile round trip schlep well worth it.

Anyone up for Mammoth next weekend?

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.

Friday night Tahoe got hit with a winterish (for October) storm, one that left trails in awesome condition and the mountains a light shade of white (a few inches, not the 16 I'd heard predicted above 9,000 ft).  While I was too ill to enjoy playing outside Saturday (damn stomach bug), I was able to let myself get excited for winter and skiing as I worked at home and felt generally feeble. 

And since we've accumulated 2+ cords of wood from the trees we had removed from our property this summer, there's no need to hold back on keeping the wood stove cranking.  Which is what we did yesterday and again this afternoon, much to the dog's delight.  It didn't take long before she was splayed out in a puddle of dog by the fireplace, pink nose and all.  Lucky for her, N, the resident fire builder/manager, doesn't have much in the way of business travel this winter.  

I've had my down jacket on all day, because the Sierra sunshine can't negate the brisk north winds that are gusting around here today.  There's rumors of snow later this week, but until I see fat white flakes gently falling outside my window, I'm not gonna believe it.

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.

Cold enough to freeze the hot water pipes nearly solid (that's 7 degrees F).  While they're dripping out rust right now, we realized that our central heating, which doesn't do a whole lot to keep our poorly insulated home warm, does do a good job of keeping the pipes defrosted.  Last night we had a roaring fire, which kept the heat down, thus the pipes under the house got cold quick.

The plumber's coming by this afternoon to help us figure out how to prevent this in the future.  Don't know how much he's gonna charge us to squeeze into our minuscule crawl space...in 20 degree weather.   It's too bad the dog a) doesn't have opposable thumbs, and b) isn't all that bright, or else we'd be able to send her under the house.