Tahoe: give thanks to Ullr!

[freshies]

Yeesssssss! Ullr delivered today: 12-24 in 12 hours, with a massive cold front following fast behind, with low teens tonight = blower tomorrow morning. today was sweet, it cracked semi-blue bird about 2pm after the storm blew itself out. limited terrain open today, tomorrow shall be sweet. pics to follow tomorrow.

[Lane Meyer]

Y`all better be glad I'm in Pittsburgh for this one. It better be good, and there better be pictures in thiss thread tomorrow! Go get em kiddies!

Hmm, maybe my flight gets in to Reno too late tomorrow night for me to make it to work on time Monday morning.....

[FollowMe]

Kill it Tahoe crew!

(My gear is in S. Cal 'til tomorrow .)

[LegoSkier]

Just got back into town. Holy sheeeit! This one snuck up on us. Lots of phat light pow everywhere! So stoked for tomorrow (either Alpine or maybe in the BC).

[gimpy]

thanx and praise we got about a foot at 6,500' in south shore county. came in sloppy and finished cold and light. sposed to be record lows tonight and tomorrow night sucking even more moisture out of it. game on suckas!!!!!wooooooooot!!!!

[freshies]

this just in: 28' at mid mountain today @ Alpine + current temps in Truckee a cool 19 degrees + tomorrow's high not supposed to top mid 20's up on the hill = sunday is gonna kick ass

[Darkside]

I just can't miss this. I'm going to brace up the knee, my hard brace hasn't arrived yet. I may only get an hour or two, but I think it'll be worth it. Hell yes.

[Vets]

this just in: 28' at mid mountain today @ Alpine + current temps in Truckee a cool 19 degrees + tomorrow's high not supposed to top mid 20's up on the hill = sunday is gonna kick ass

28 feet at mid mountain! Does Alpine exaggerate their snow report? Is this an attempt to make up for the mistake on the Stonehenge dimensions in Spinal Tap?
Looking forward to tomorrow!

[Alkasquawlik]

Squaw this morning....and when it cleared at 2, to reveal the 2 feet left behind.

[Arty50]

And of course I am in LA. You're welcome.

[3pin]

Woke up yesterday morning, saw it was snowing, didn't bother to sit up.

"Sweet, maybe we'll get the four inches we're supposed to get in town."

No rush to get out until I sat up about an hour later and saw a foot-plus on the deck. Now I'm in a hurry, I knew it was snowing and this one still surprised me.

Made it to Alpine by 10. Every other car in front of me turned to Squaw. Alpine was just barely filling the first couple lots. No crowds, no lines, just freshies. Painful graupel and wind on the first line or two, no visibility, pretty brutal. Then it got colder, graupel turned to flakes, and the visibility improved. Then it got awesome. Only downside was the 25-minute drive from the morning turned into 2+ hours to get home with the roads and dumbass drivers.

Got up this morning, dawn patrol on Mt. Rose. Girl had to be in Reno for work at 10:30, so we started up at 6:30. Pretty windblown in the open, but deep in the trees. Beautiful morning watching the sun break free from the clouds and light up sparkling cold snow. The clouds still shrouded most of the peaks on the East and West shores, all you could see was the Lake in between.

I'm a photo jong, but here: Tahoe from Rose this morning

Now I'm at work, but damn content. Get some.

[repeat]

I woke up wondering why the hell people were mowing their lawns at 7 on a Saturday morning. Fortunatly those were snowblowers. Squaw was fun but they didn't open much terrain, although reverse traverse was very nice.

[lph]

Saturday was fantastic. First couple hours were buttery smooth powder, during a blizzard. Temps plummeted and the the next thing we new that buttery powder had become blower pow. By 2pm the sun came out and we enjoyed 2 hours of the best conditions of the season so far.

Today was a let down to say the least. Kirkwood got hammered by continous NE high winds. Best that could be found was wind buffed snow, that was fun, but not what we were hoping for. Not to mention, it was pretty damned cold.

On another positive note, watersnowdirt was back on her board saturday and tore it up bell to bell (along with myself, hardrider) we were one of the first chairs.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

On another positive note, watersnowdirt was back on her board saturday and tore it up bell to bell

http://tetongravity.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gifhttp://tetongravity.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gifhttp://tetongravity.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gifhttp://tetongravity.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gifhttp://tetongravity.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gif

[LegoSkier]

The Alpine report for today:

Got up early and made it to stand in line and grab the 4th chair up the summit six. A little cloud cap hung over Ward peak and I decided to drop off left down into Alpine bowl and under Keyhole for my 1st run. Everything was wind hammered and I got a little discouraged. OK but no epic pow. On my next ride up I noticed how the rope line at the far end of Wolveriene Cirque looked good so I went over there and that was good. No wind destruction there and a few fresh patches left. Did that one more time and on my third time out there I saw them flip the signs on Low Beaver just as I got there. All I can say is . 2-3' of deep, light 5% fluff untracked everywhere. Even on the exit to the bowl it was sick. On my third time out there I ran a traverse all the way out toward the face below buttress. Kinda interesting as out there in the south facing sun there obviously hadn't been much of a base to begin with so said 2-3' was directly on top of rocks and bushes in many places. Dings and one big core shot was had but so were many more fresh pow turns. Sort of a 3 or 4 turns here then crash through that bush then traverse left and grab 5 more turns then go around that barely covered rock outcropping, etc, etc. Not exactly high speed or fluid skiing but still some serious quality deepness.
After three more of those runs I did a couple high speed runs and then decided to go on the obligatory ridge epic. I went from top of Summit six out through the top house of Alpine Bowl chair up to the top of high traverse down to the top of lower saddle and kept going along the ridge out past the 'F' tree and down to the top of Sherwood chair. I ran it all the way out to Arts Knob and that was worth it all the way. Nothing but a nice few hundred vert of knee deep down feathers with no one else around.
After that I did a few more fun runs on the windpack and ran out the traverse above Kangaroo one more time and called it at 1:30 - 2. Spent, tired, and happy and such an unexpected pow day. It wasn't easy to find and you had to work for it and be willing to take some base dammage but it was very much there today.

[gimpy]

booooooyaaahhhhhh!!!! this storm kicked some serious ass. waterhouse east/powderhouse was totally fucking fantastic this morning. dog deep blower in the trees over a great base. totally protected from the wind but you could see it screaming out of the gully bowl and between waterhouse proper and powderhouse. was too much of a pussy to punch in a new skintrack though as the one there was a suckass meandering roundabout. then after a couple hours of work, the wife and i headed to the heave where more powder induced bliss was achieved. the new powderbowl chair is a serious improvement from what it was, so we just lapped the lower half of the mountain as it looked like it was howling up top. dawn patrol at powderhouse round 6ish monday and tuesday suckas. come git sum!!!!

[Spats]

Since it didn't look like this storm was going to amount to much, I went up to my friend's cabin near secret location for hiking and (maybe) skiing.

I awakened Saturday morning to heavy rain, rousted my friends, and what with the stop to chain up, didn't get skiing until 10 AM. Fortunately secret location is mostly populated by gapers and I skied several totally fresh lines before lunch. After going in to dry out my soaked gloves, I came back out to cold temps and high winds.

Turns out everyone else had given up and the winds had buffed the liftline completely smooth, so I had my own private field of creamy pow for at least four runs.

By the end of the day my legs were pretty beat, but I decided to hit the little triple drop sequence one more time. Well, I dropped into my old bombhole, my legs just wouldn't hold me up, and I front flip and toss a shoe. Since I don't see it, I yell up to the people on the lift "See my ski?" Some guy yells "It's at the bottom of the chute", so I put on my one ski, drop around the side, and look up.

Evidently by "bottom of the chute" he meant "top of the chute", because that's where my ski was. You know when you're trying to climb up a chute but the snow is all on top of rocks and instead of being able to kick a step you're just kicking snow into the gap between the snow and the rock and you can't make any progress? Yeah. But overall, it was a good day.

I sure would have like to hit Disney opening today...was it wind-hammered up there too, or was there still some smoothness left?

[splat]

Had to go get some turns in at the Wood today. The eastern upslope was scouring the bowls, so Vets and I headed out Palisades to get over the ridges and into the gullies and trees that were catching the blow in. The gullies were fairly loaded, moreso down low, and the low trees were pleasantly fat, but not steep enough to lay down any treachery, other than hitting them fast and almost straight. Ran into lph, hardrider & friend, and telenater at 6. They were on the same program. The only time that east wind is of any benefit is when a cyclonic effect brings clouds back to the mountains from the desert and drops the super ultralight that Utah gets.

[davey]

The Alpine report for today:

Got up early and made it to stand in line and grab the 4th chair up the summit six. A little cloud cap hung over Ward peak and I decided to drop off left down into Alpine bowl and under Keyhole for my 1st run. Everything was wind hammered and I got a little discouraged. OK but no epic pow. On my next ride up I noticed how the rope line at the far end of Wolveriene Cirque looked good so I went over there and that was good. No wind destruction there and a few fresh patches left. Did that one more time and on my third time out there I saw them flip the signs on Low Beaver just as I got there. All I can say is . 2-3' of deep, light 5% fluff untracked everywhere. Even on the exit to the bowl it was sick. On my third time out there I ran a traverse all the way out toward the face below buttress. Kinda interesting as out there in the south facing sun there obviously hadn't been much of a base to begin with so said 2-3' was directly on top of rocks and bushes in many places. Dings and one big core shot was had but so were many more fresh pow turns. Sort of a 3 or 4 turns here then crash through that bush then traverse left and grab 5 more turns then go around that barely covered rock outcropping, etc, etc. Not exactly high speed or fluid skiing but still some serious quality deepness.
After three more of those runs I did a couple high speed runs and then decided to go on the obligatory ridge epic. I went from top of Summit six out through the top house of Alpine Bowl chair up to the top of high traverse down to the top of lower saddle and kept going along the ridge out past the 'F' tree and down to the top of Sherwood chair. I ran it all the way out to Arts Knob and that was worth it all the way. Nothing but a nice few hundred vert of knee deep down feathers with no one else around.
After that I did a few more fun runs on the windpack and ran out the traverse above Kangaroo one more time and called it at 1:30 - 2. Spent, tired, and happy and such an unexpected pow day. It wasn't easy to find and you had to work for it and be willing to take some base dammage but it was very much there today.

I wasn't able to get out this weekend, think alpine will be decent tomorrow morning? or is it pretty much skied out?

[Darkside]

I got up early, slapped on the soft brace (over the counter pharmacy type) as tight as possible that my knee wouldn't hyperextend, and booked it to Alpine. Had to get my pass sorted out, but was in line for 1st chair (my 1st first chair ever!) at 8:15. The lift ride up was quiet...everyone was eyeing the tracked up lower moutain and wondering just where to go. It was howling at the top, and the clouds hadn't cleared yet, reminded me of being back on the east coast. I wanted to test out the knee, since this was my first day out since losing my ACL, so I went for something easier. Headed over to Peter's Peril, dropped down into to the trees to find a decent mix of tracked pow and windrift. Met up with a friend at the bottom, and hit that once more. Then we set out and traversed over to Lower Saddle/High Yellow. My knee was holding me up, and I got a bit behind the rest of the people I was with. Came around the top of Keyhole, and they were gone. I followed some different tracks, and all of a sudden I was in the trees right past Lower Saddle, ans it was amazing. Knee/thigh deep, untouched, and I killed it. Best turns of the year, so far.
Met up with some other people, headed over to Deer Park, and even a bit further out than that. There was some great stuff left out there too, and we proceeded to kill that. Also watched one my coworkers throw a sweet double eject off a 25 footer, which pretty much ruined all the repairs he had done on his Spatula (I am going to try and post a picture of this, he actually cracked the ski halfway across under the foot).
At 11, I decided I had had enough, and that I didn't want to push it without the full brace. But damn it felt good being back on skis after more than 2 weeks.
This was also my first day on my Spatulas. Holy crap...they're tricky on hard pack. Oh, and powder performance is adequate (not, this is the sickest ski I've ever skied, I'll never ski anything else on a powder day). There were so many people on them at Alpine, at one point we almost had a 6 pack of Spatulas.
I'm back, biotch!

[splat]

Good to hear, Darkside!!!!!!!!

I actually tweaked my knee a little that day at Alpine and today was my first day back at it, too.

[splat]

Just a thought for those heading out: 4 degrees forecasted for Reno in the am.
Much, much colder up top.

[freshies]

alpine was schweet today - not as buttery as yesterday afternoon - but good none the less. looks like many here hit alpine today too - shoot - i also was in line @ 8:30am this morning, we were all probably standing within spitting distance of one another!

i hit keyhole (money), high yellow, petes peril, beaver, and some saddle shots - lots of skating/traversing today - i am beat. but good snow was found and schralped. had a few face shots today for sure. gotta love these cold temps! glad everyone got sum today! let's hope the storms keep on coming!

[Vets]

Here are a couple of pictures from today at Kirkwood. They aren't the best pictures I have taken, but they do show how dry the snow was.

Splat hucking off of a rock:
http://www.loloville.com/splatkw28nov04.JPG
Notice the smoke trail.
He talked me into hucking off of the same rock. It was fun.

Telenater launching off of a ridgeline:
http://www.loloville.com/telenaterkw28nov04.JPG
Notice the wisps of snow at the ridgeline. Also notice that Telenater is on alpine gear (the stiff Bro Model prototypes.)

[BigSexy]

[QUOTE=Darkside]
This was also my first day on my Spatulas. Holy crap...they're tricky on hard pack. Oh, and powder performance is adequate (not, this is the sickest ski I've ever skied, I'll never ski anything else on a powder day). There were so many people on them at Alpine, at one point we almost had a 6 pack of Spatulas.
QUOTE]

Is this the McConkey effect? I have never seen more then a couple at one time at the resorts up here (pnw)