Full Moon Fever- 4700 vertical feet
Monday's storm brought about 1 1/2 feet to the east slope of the Sierra so the thinking was that things were ripe for a moonlight run down the Davis Creek drainage. Last night was the chosen night.
We dropped a car at 5000 feet at the Davis Creek campground in Washoe Valley. We then drove the 30 minutes to the 8889' Mt Rose summit. 3 of us were gearing up to hike to the top of Slide Mt @ 9700' and part of the Mt. Rose Ski area when a poor soul pulled up asking if we'd seen his freinds, they were going to hike and ski the infamous Chutes. He was from out of town and looked a little sad when we said we were the only ones here so we invited him along on our adventure. He had never seen the run were talking about,. He was in for a treat.
3 of us were boarding and one soul had his skis, the hiking would be easy, just follow the cat track over the top and avoid the night grooming crew. 25 minutes later we were atop Slide Mt., the moon was shimmering beautifully off of Lake Tahoe to the south, Carson City and Reno were off to the east, 5000 feet below us. We clicked into our bindings, step in's are essential for snowboarding. We scurried down the 1500' of skier packed snow off of Washoe Zephry, ducked the rope and viewed the promised land, 3200' of 35 degree plus open terrain interspered with small trees, picture the Hobacks @ JH.
The snow had settled but there was still 4-6" of Sierra powder, The lighting was surreal and the boarding epic. The skier stuggled at the bottom where the snow got funky but the boarders sliced it up gracefully. Snow coverage was thin for the last 500 feet so some picking and choosing through the Manzanita was necessary. Smiles and high fives were everywhere as was our Full Moon Fever.
