TR: 12/26 - 01/02 Tahoe or Bust
Decided back in November that there was no way I was going to hang around skiing the crap in Ontario for my week off after Christmas. In my hast to not book any earlier than the end of November air fair had started to ski rocket for the holidays. My initial qwest was for SLC or Tahoe. But to save a few bucks I decided to roll the dice on Seattle. Baker/Alpental/Crystal would have more than enough terrain to keep me eastern gaper ass happy. So between November and X-mas the PNW got no love from Urll. But I was sticking to my original plan, pray for snow in the PNW and fly out Dec 26th fly home Dec 31st. My girlfriend wanted to come along and chase some pow, but is between jobs right now and things are a little tight. So at the time of booking I decided to be a nice boyfriend and fly home just in time for New Years eve. That was the plan.
Dec 26th:
Fly out of Toronto, plane delayed 2hrs for de-icing and snow on the runways. Arrive in Seattle and proceed to try and find a deal on a rental car as I hadn’t pre-booked anything. End up getting a sweet Subie wagon from Dollar for $250usd unlimited mileage. I learned from a business trip this summer that you have to ensure the mileage is unlimited. Proceed to head up to Baker in hopes of some left over fresh from the 20 inches that had fallen over X-mas.
Dec 27th:
Seems that I should have been there one day earlier. The pow got shredded one day earlier. Backcountry looked sweet. But as I am a bc JONG with no gear or knowledge, I was left with the in bounds frozen left overs. Needless to say it sucked. Looked pretty but sucked if you were craving pow. After skiing I decided to start looking at the weather elsewhere. Hmmm whats this a storm brewing in Tahoe? Looked like things could get pounded. (Side note: on a two week trip late last Feb I chased a big storm down to Tahoe from Fernie. Got mad deep skiing in the storm at Squaw, and bluebird deep at Kirkwood.) Figured no use in sitting around Seattle when I can ski pow a mere 14 hour drive south.
Baker backcountry.
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Dec 28th:
Drive , drive, drive, drive, stop check weather, drive, drive, drive. Call girlfriend and inform that I am no longer in the PNW but in Tahoe. Arrive Kirkwood, sleep in Subie in parking lot.
Dec 29th:
Awaken by avie bombs, get that sweet chill up my spine that things could be good. Kirkwood got hit with a foot or more. Hit up chair 6 early, grab about 9th chair. It was nice, knee deep on the wind blown side of the first run. Meet some random guy on the next chair and head to Cham with him. We are the second set down Cham run, get face shots on the upper section. Move over try and find some maggs at 10/10. Missed em. Get more sweep deep runs. See that they have opened the backside and head out to get some fresh on Thunder Saddle. It was deep deep on Thunder. Hit a small untracked drop, felt like landing in feathers.
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Head back to the car to grab a different pair of gloves. Heading back up 10 some how I notice SuPu’s FaGGS from the lift. Wait at the tops. Sure enough it’s Punani and Kush. Proceed to spend the rest of the afternoon chasing them around getting fresh after fresh after fresh. In the line for 6 we see Sobchak, who get line of the day for “Have you guys been skiing untracked knee to thigh deep champagne blower powder all by yourself”. We proceed out to Palisades where it was all true. The snow was light, untracked (aside from Sobchaks 11 runs) and deep. It was sweet, until SuPu got taken out by some sharks teeth and landed on a rock. He gimped himself up good. Kush and I proceeded to rip the deep while SuPu got himself checked out.
After skiing call the girl again, this time with bad news. Won’t be home for New Years. This does not go so well. To say she was a little upset would not describe it. She was rather hurt that I was bailing on her for powder. Also make some calls to re-book my plane ticket from Reno or Sac. No problem only a few bucks. Call the car rental spot about dropping the car, opppps big problem. The Dollar office in Seattle is an owner operator, not part of the chain. The was no way at no cost that I could not drop the car anywhere but Seattle. Ah shit. This would mean I had to kill a day just getting back to Seattle. Lesson learned, always ask about one way drops when chasing powder.
Dec 30th:
The storm rolls in with very high winds and puking snow, K-wood is down. Even trying to get to Sierra to ski some trees gets ousted. The late afternoon turns into a gathering at lph’s amazing pad.
Hop learns to run the snowblower.
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WSD does her best big wave tow in surfer impression behind Arty’s jeep.
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All followed by an amazing dinner cooked up by WSD.
At some point a mexican wrestler showed up.
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Outside it was puking, major snow dumpage was happening.
Dec 31st:
It snow gods played a funny trick on most all in Tahoe. It snowed soooo much it shut things down.
Monsterdumps Landcruiser under a monster dump.
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Road was unplowed, Carson Pass was closed, Heavenly delayed till noon to shovel out. After the gong show put on by some colourful neighbours, we finally get out of the house and on the way to K-wood. With the pass still closed, we had hop to amuse us. He sessioned our road side hit to full effect.
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After the pass finally opened we made the dash for the remaining 3hrs. It was a mad dash to get as many runs in before the lifts closed. On the second run Arty50 and Monsterdump set up to drop Jim’s. I dropped in to the side to get some pics, only to find the batteries dead in my camera. By this time Chair 10 had opened back up. We head over to lap up the deep. Monsterdump and I head up to hit Once is Enough. That chute rocks, spits you out onto the apron like a freight train. Meet back up with Kush and Hop, and set up to hit a small drop under the Wall. Monsterdump proceeds to create his own new move, some sort of half twist half flip cadaver landing. A real sight to be seen. Next up is a cliff that was scoped out from Chair 6 that is over near Waterfall. Hop sets up the top as Arty scopes the landing. Initial impression from Hop is approx 30 feet. He stomps a nice cross. Untill this point the largest I had hit was maybe 8 feet. Decided that this was as good a landing as I was ever going to see, so I hucked. Landing just to the left of Hops bomb hole. What an amazing rush, stuck the landing, no yard sale, no cartwheel. This closing out the day on the hill.
New Years Eve goes off in a relative calm fashion. Hop, Arty, Kush, SuPu, and I grab a bite to eat and head off to the Casino’s. The Casino’s are packed with people, just trying to get a drink was a 45 minute affair. We met up with WSD, Wonderwomen, and Tyrone Shoelaces. Hardrider made it just in time for the countdown. With it puking outside most thoughts were on the next days deep instead of getting wasted.
Jan 1st:
Rally the troops to try for Kirkwood yet again. Carson Pass was closed for avie control but the hopes were that it would open early. Headed up to wait in line. So the window of time I had to ski was till about 1pm, would make for a good day if the pass opened. But by 11am with it still closed it was hardly worth it for me to pay full price for a lift ticket. With tons of fresh pow still to be skied I turned around to begin my drive back to Seattle. Drove till Midnight making it to Eugene OR and spent the night in a road side rest area.
Jan 2nd:
Finish the drive to Seattle and return the rental car. Total mileage on the rental car for this trip was 2300 miles. Some guy at the airport sees my ski bag and says “Crappy weather around here for skiing”. My response was “I scored tons of fresh pow, you just need to know where to look”. Fly home to my loving, accepting girlfriend.
The Tahoe crew was amazing. I can’t say thanks enough for their hospitality. New friends were made, and a new appreciation for Kirkwood developed. To get shown around the mountain by locals makes all the difference in the world. Next time I am out a round of beers is on me.
