TR: More Early Season Tahoe Touring

**Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer** · 12-10-2015, 12:49 PM

TR: More Early Season Tahoe Touring

Dates: Saturday, December 5 & Sunday, December 6, 2015

Location: South Lake Tahoe

Skiers: Sat: MapleLeafGillies (MLG), SchralphMacchio (Schralph), Noah and UCL; Sun: MLG, Mike and UCL

Photos: As Noted

Synopsis: Last Thursday, another small storm fell dropping between 5-12 inches of snow across the Lake Tahoe basin, depending on aspect and elevation. Saturday was largely a warming trend and rather mild weather, while Sunday brought very intense, gale-force winds (with gusts of near 90 mph on higher elevation ridge tops late Sunday afternoon).

On Saturday, we tried to ski some zones that ended up being pretty rocky and thin and definitely need another couple of feet of snow to really come into play. Still the views of the Lake cannot be beat on a calm, clear day.

MLG skinning up, enjoying the day. Photo: UCL

Up top, a very easy scramble to one of the better summits in Tahoe. This is much easier than this picture makes it look – the foreshortening of the camera really makes this look steeper than it is. Photo: UCL

Fortunately the winds on Saturday were pretty mellow (although it was cold up top). Trying to stand here on Sunday would have likely blown us into the Lake! Photo: UCL

I was pretty pumped to be chilling up there, back again for another couple of days skiing powder. Photo: MLG

Up top, the snow was a touch wind affected, but still soft. However, the coverage at this elevation was really lacking. We basically picked our way down very slowly to avoid hitting too many rocks. Lesson learned = early season needs higher elevations! Photo: UCL

Schralph working his way down. Photo: MLG

There were fleeting moments of hero snow, only to then immediately ding a rock 3 turns later! Photo: MLG

We called it quits after one lap on account of the coverage really thinning out down near lake level.

On Sunday, MLG, Mike and I wanted to head to higher elevation to ensure the coverage was adequate, but we were also combatting insane winds all day – so we went to a treed zone.

South Side of Mt. Tallac in the distance. Photo: UCL

MLG and Mike hanging out on the summit – definitely better coverage up at this elevation. Although the winds were really strong, it was not too bad (but very cold!). Photos: UCL

Up top, the snow was awesome (albeit a bit heavy due to some warming). Mike getting deep! Photo: MLG

Let's take another look at that….Wait, what's that? Yes, that is Mike given his "O Face"! Photo: MLG (O Face Graphic courtesy of Mike)

Mike redeems himself with more great turns. Photo: MLG

However, Mike's confidence continues to build, and he decides to open it up and jump off some stuff…. Never a good idea early season – hits a rock, goes over the handle bars essentially almost into a tree! Wrist was a little sore, but otherwise Mike was OK and laughing about it. Photo: UCL

The snow was pretty solid, but did warm up as you loosed elevation. Photos: Mike and UCL, respectively

Down low outside of the deeper snow, coverage remained OK however. MLG giving the ski racer form and Mike heading off. Photos: UCL

Another couple of great days in the mountains! Here is hoping these next series of forecasted storms deliver the large snowfall amounts being predicted!