Tahoe Weather, Conditions, Stoke, and What's Up Thread...

[Superstar Punani]

***Pubic Service Announcement***

There is a snapped half of a ski pole in the Temple of Doom LZ. I tried looking for it but failed.

Don't land on it.



(pic by Mildbill)

On a related note, if anyone has a single or pair of Arno Adams PMGear ski poles you'd like to sell, lemme know.

[Jim S]

Chicadee Ridge near Diamond Peak had so many stashes today. The snow quality was outstanding.






Even my woman got first tracks ....

[unpossible]

those tracks were in cartoon land not white wolf... and I know who they belong to

Was just about to post I didn't see any tracks in White Wolf. Didn't look that way.

Still PLENTY of untracked snow in bounds at alpine... been a great week!

Even the stuff that is tracked up is still skiing really well. Plus when I left, the winds were beginning to work there magic.

[LongShortLong]

Sorry if you couldn't find enough of our skier-packed-powder.

Thanks for trying. I found a little today.

[213]

Driving down old 40 you could see a red sunset from all of the snow up in the air.

Mike,

Do you have a pic of this?

Ice crystals interact with light differently than atmospheric gas particles. The small size of gas particles causes Rayleigh scattering, which is why the sky is blue and sunsets are red.



Why blue sky? Selective scattering!
However, red becomes dominant when the path length of light rays is large.



Based upon modern optical theory, I would expect the ice crystals to generate halos and/or some rainbow-ish features (sundogs) rather than scattering of red light.



My estimate is that it was an awesome sunset to begin with (clear conditions over the west slope/coastal Pacific = great opportunity to scatter lots of red light) and that the snow crystals glimmering as they were blown westward just made it sweeter by reflecting (a subset of geometric optics) the red light (not creating it). Mood enhancements, if you will.



by the way, there is a bunch of cool shit you can see on that image. Snow-covered valleys setting up for fat inversions, closed cell convection, contrails, and snowy mountains woo hoo!

[~mikey b]

Nope. No pics. Sorry.

I was driving east down old40. Sky was red over Donner Lake, Truckee, Martis Valley and Mt Rose. I was a little late. It was probably better a bit earlier.

Wonder what the wind delivered....

[Ottime]

Sky was super red Saturday night as well as I drove from CP to KW. Awesome sunset. Caused by awesomeness.

[~mikey b]

SAC forecast is reflective of those winds. These areas are not always wind loaded. Heads up

[gimpy]

weather like this reminds me of why i moved from colorado. never had to cancel an east side trip due to cold. livin in cali has made this former icecoaster soft

[TahoeBC]

Looks like your new knee is working well for ya Jim! So what is the answer to that life long question? "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush"

Tahoe has been going off big time, if you have not been skiing you have been truly missing out. Cold temps and amazingly calm winds have made for fantastic no speed limit skiing with super stable snow conditions for nailing those big lines. As a bonus we have been hardly seeing anyone in the BC. We did get hammered up high by an east wind dropping into a bowl for our last run just before dusk, hopefully it did not mess things up to much.

[SchralphMacchio]

weather like this reminds me of why i moved from colorado. never had to cancel an east side trip due to cold. livin in cali has made this former icecoaster soft

don't be such a softie, my fingertips are still hurting from the bitter cold this weekend, face shots down the Bloody Couloir made it all worth it

[TahoeJ]

Perhaps I'm confused about where White Wolf starts and ends, officially. Some of the tracks (and skiers) I saw were not far from the lift towers and some of them crossed between them, finishing further down Alpine Meadows road vs. the resort side. Not that it matters.

[TahoeBC]

don't be such a softie, my fingertips are still hurting from the bitter cold this weekend, face shots down the Bloody Couloir made it all worth it

Well that softie had just finished his second lap and was loading up at the truck when we arrived around 9 at the trailhead an it twas around -14.

Nice job on nailing Bloody!

[SchralphMacchio]

I think it was actually colder in Tahoe than the eastside this weekend! We only had -5F at the trailhead but it quickly warmed to a balmy 0 on Saturday. Sunday morning was a bit colder at -10F but much warmer at 5F.

Also, I am sure this is already widely known, but I am pretty soft on the softie scale, especially when it comes to guys like Gimpy and JT

[Steven S. Dallas]

Nice gets Alex.

[~mikey b]

Tending the bridge.

Who's down for early up tomorrow? Donner Summit would be good. I need to be at Sacramento airport at 330.

[ImSearchingforPowder]

Sugar bowl was pretty windblown today. Huge gusts up on the ridge.

[komo]

Who's down for early up tomorrow? Donner Summit would be good. I need to be at Sacramento airport at 330.

I wish. Careful up there http://www.sierraavalanchecenter.org/node/3275

[~mikey b]

We saw lots of fun and funky snow out towards Andesite today.

Safe fun is available.

[tahoearmada]

interesting Tahoe J: That is definitely white wolf but not the part most of us want to ski... Troy mustve had a group out there

[dhklauer]

Here's a little edit from Dec 30th and 31st.

[powdork]

^^nice! one suggestion is to aim just a bit more down. the pillows at the end would be much more interesting if we could get some ski interaction/feedback. i'm definitely not saying my videos are an example of what's right cuz they're pointed way too far south now (such is the wonder of gorilla glue).

and that's a line i've always looked at while skinning up jakes. nice

[dhklauer]

^^nice! one suggestion is to aim just a bit more down. the pillows at the end would be much more interesting if we could get some ski interaction/feedback. i'm definitely not saying my videos are an example of what's right cuz they're pointed way too far south now (such is the wonder of gorilla glue).

and that's a line i've always looked at while skinning up jakes. nice

Thanks!
It's funny that you made the camera angle comment. After that weekend, I consciously made an effort to lower it, and get more ski tip. Give me a few more weeks, and I might be able to post something respectable.

[Wickedbrew4u]

Nice huck pow dork a few days ago. Snow was sweet. Where was that drop, KW backcountry?

[powdork]

^^ not sure exactly what you're referring to, but our last tour was from carson pass to kirkwood.



the full write up is here. (or half the full write up anyway. ottime has been too busy at work to get the pics out of his time capsule yet).