Lake Tahoe 2015/16 - Year of Godzilla Baby Jesus

[SchralphMacchio]

Which one is 51? We drove into Horse Meadow on Saturday from 89/Hope Valley and it was open all the way through. We biked from Horse Meadow up to Armstrong, dropped down to Corral, cut over on Railroad and came back up High Meadow from the road which was also open all the way, then rode up to Star Lake and back down to town via Cold Creek. Long ass ride but hero conditions made it worth the second climb. It was way too damn cold on either lap (aka I packed inaproppriate clothing) to warrant going up to Freel.

[Dhelihiker]

FS 51, based on Scralphs post I would say yes.

[TahoeJ]

I've heard the mountain-biking is sweet right now. Need to get up there before the last days of October / early November when the real snow arrives. Looks like that pattern change is finally going to happen in about 9-10 days.

[Ottime]

Please, oh please, oh please do not bring up anything in 9-10 days this year. No, I don't believe in jinx, but despair in listening to blind hope. When we get within 6 hours of a pattern change, that is te appropriate time to get prophetic. And I get it. The prospects of a Halloween dump are exciting to say the least. But as of now, it is nothing more than a guess on how several tropical systems and cold fronts might react to each other.

Besides, we kind of need that storm to stay north, as it would otherwise be an excellent swell producer, and a storm on us will just rip that thing up and make it pretty useless. Except for sunset splash photos.

[lepistoir]

Boy, Jumbo Wild is on the mark. Just the sort of provocative look at runaway ski resort development needed around here to inspire some involvement and activism. Kudos to Art Haus and Alpenglow for packing the house with two showings. Good activator presence from Patagonia and www.SaveTahoeForests.com
Nice cinematography and ski/wilderness footage with excellent documentary storytelling. More than a ski movie. Worth the download and sharing with friends. Why do we need another ski resort development? What is lost in its place? Can men build something besides monuments to themselves?
https://youtu.be/qNRYgn7T2C4

[lepistoir]

Speaking of powerful activism, look at Tahoe Backcountry Alliance getting shit done:

TRPA, BACKCOUNTRY SKIERS, WORKING TO ADDRESS WINTER RECREATION ACCESS

October 19, 2015 by Thomas Lotshaw

Lake Tahoe, Stateline, NV – The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, El Dorado County, and members of Tahoe Backcountry Alliance announced today they are partnering to create a coalition of stakeholders to maintain and enhance public access for winter backcountry skiing and snowboarding.

“We’re optimistic about this opportunity to work together to get back some of the access that we have lost in the past, and work to enhance access in the future. Let’s together reclaim and preserve backcountry access in the Tahoe Basin,” said Mike Schwartz and Todd Offenbacher, of Tahoe Backcountry Alliance.

As a result of this new partnership, the public meeting the evening of October 23 has been postponed. Instead, nearly a dozen agencies are convening this week to begin a comprehensive conversation about roadside access to some of Tahoe’s more important backcountry skiing locations.

“We have heard the concerns of the backcountry community and are committed to addressing them through this process,” said El Dorado County District 5 Supervisor Sue Novasel, who is also a member of TRPA’s Governing Board.

Ringed by prominent mountains, extensive public lands, and wilderness areas, Tahoe offers world-class backcountry skiing. But while the sport has been growing in popularity, parking and access to popular peaks have become increasingly challenging.

That issue surfaced this month when a Caltrans project to reduce soil erosion and stormwater pollution on seven miles of State Route 89 between Emerald Bay and Meeks Bay displaced some on- and off-road parking used by the backcountry skiing community to access popular peaks in the area.

To make up for that lost parking, TRPA and Caltrans approved a project revision to install a 25-by-180-foot paved pullout just south of D.L. Bliss State Park, and California State Parks offered to provide plowed winter parking at the D.L. Bliss State Park Visitor Center.

Reducing stormwater pollution remains a top priority because fine sediment pollution from roads and developed areas is a key contributor to declines in Lake Tahoe’s famed water clarity. But TRPA and backcountry skiers partnering in this initiative believe that those measures can be better balanced with needs for improved winter recreation access.

“Improving public recreation opportunities and recreation access are top goals for TRPA, and we feel we can play a vital role in working with the backcountry ski community and bringing the right people and agencies together to tackle this issue. Improved recreation access, parking, safety, and transit service are key focus areas in the comprehensive plans that we are putting together to improve all of our highway corridors at Lake Tahoe,” said Joanne Marchetta, Executive Director at TRPA.

TRPA will also review upcoming water quality improvement projects around Emerald Bay that Caltrans has already received permits for to ensure that maintaining or enhancing parking areas for backcountry access is considered in those highway plans

http://www.trpa.org/trpa-backcountry...eation-access/

[lepistoir]

I've heard the mountain-biking is sweet right now. Need to get up there before the last days of October / early November when the real snow arrives. Looks like that pattern change is finally going to happen in about 9-10 days.

I'm not saying you jinxed it, but 3 out of 4 of today's runs were dry until after the start of November...

[TahoeJ]

Jesus, don't be a bunch of pussies. I was talking about the pattern change in terms of colder temps, rain and maybe patchy bits of snow that aren't ideal for riding trails, not skiing 4 inches of pow on top of dirt and rocks. If you had expectations of good skiing around Halloween then you need to take a better look at the models. It's not a jinx if there wasn't real potential in the first place.

I realize I said "real snow" but I didn't actually mean it was going to dump. Just that there might be a little snow that won't all melt due to lower temps. Feel free to take that as a reverse jinx if you must.

[smallies]

Nice to see Taos getting some. http://www.wolfcreekski.com/wolf-creek-web-cam.php

[Nuthon]

Me & the wife bet every year on the 1st significant snow date. The rule is 6" at t our house in Meyers. My Date this year is Nov. 11th. plus or minus 5 days.

For the last couple of years i have said sometime in Oct. I would put my accuracy somewhere on the 50-75% range.

I always love riding those 1st storms.

Oct 29th 2013

[The Dad]

Jesus, don't be a bunch of pussies.

In our defense, you are what you eat.

[dookeyXXX]

Me & the wife bet every year on the 1st significant snow date. The rule is 6" at t our house in Meyers. My Date this year is Nov. 11th. plus or minus 5 days.

For the last couple of years i have said sometime in Oct. I would put my accuracy somewhere on the 50-75% range.

I always love riding those 1st storms.

Oct 29th 2013

Damn, Nuthon. You and the wife are hardcore. I'd settle for 2".

Boy, Jumbo Wild is on the mark. Just the sort of provocative look at runaway ski resort development needed around here to inspire some involvement and activism. Kudos to Art Haus and Alpenglow for packing the house with two showings. Good activator presence from Patagonia and www.SaveTahoeForests.com
Nice cinematography and ski/wilderness footage with excellent documentary storytelling. More than a ski movie. Worth the download and sharing with friends. Why do we need another ski resort development? What is lost in its place? Can men build something besides monuments to themselves?
https://youtu.be/qNRYgn7T2C4

I concur.
Jumbo Wild is a must see.
I love the progression of Nick W. and the Sweetgrass Productions crew. They've come a long way as filmmakers since Hand Cut, their first film.
The film does a solid job of presenting both sides of the argument, featuring lots of footage and interviews from all the players and a few locals to boot.
While the plans for the resort look intriguing, it's hard to argue with the salvation of the grizzly bear population and the sacred nature of the area.
Good, solid documentary filmmaking.

[dookeyXXX]

Local ski movie, Call of the Mild, will be screening at the Art Haus in TC on Wed. Oct. 28 at 7:30 pm
(these are the guys/gals who made last year's Benefit of the Drought, btw).

[Ottime]

2"? He said real snow.

And I thought you meant a pattern change. As in a shift from fall to winter. I think Nuthon has a good number there. I would venture 11/19 being the date.

And I'm expecting a 30" thick slush fall, followed by a quick temp drop with 5" of styrofoam and three of blower. Followed by some cold weather. Before that, I'll be at the beach. Swell should be on again this evening.

[TahoeJ]

I'm calling it on 11/11.

In the meantime, time to go clean up all of the dry dust caked on my bike.

[LightRanger]

Backcountry Mag reports on the newly-formed Tahoe Backcountry Alliance. http://backcountrymagazine.com/stori...ountry-access/

KEEP TAHOE SKIABLE: RICH MEYER, A MAN BEHIND THE FORMATION OF THE NEW TAHOE BACKCOUNTRY ALLIANCE TALKS BACKCOUNTRY ACCESS

BY LOUISE LINTILHAC OCTOBER 22, 2015LEAVE A COMMENT

Rich Meyer is a man on a mission. That mission? To make the backcountry in California’s Lake Tahoe region more accessible.

Meyer has been a mountain guide for more than 15 years, leading trips around the world and at home in the Sierras. As a board member and ambassador for the Winter Wildlands Alliance, Meyer has been working to grow the backcountry community on a grand scale, but more recently he began directing his efforts to his home front.

Meyer, along with a few committed locals and friends in the Tahoe area, founded a fledgling backcountry organization whose mission is to be “the voice for the human-powered winter backcountry community in the Lake Tahoe area.” The impetus for the organization is twofold: the general desire to create a cohesive backcountry community with a unified voice and the need to inform policy surround a current issue over parking in the Tahoe area that we reported on last week.

We talked with Meyer to find out more about the reasons for founding this organization and what role it might serve in the future. Here is the Tahoe Backcountry Alliance’s story in Meyer’s own words.

Brennan Lagasse skins up the flanks of Jakes Peak on Tahoe’s West Shore. | Lake Tahoe, Calif. | [Photo] Ryan Salm

“We felt like, hey, there are tons and tons of backcountry skiers in Tahoe, the community is only growing and issues like parking, ski-area backcountry access, uphill ski travel in the ski areas, the tram at Squaw between Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley, all these issues, we have either been having them or they’re going to come up very soon. Not to mention the mandate that was sent down finally for the Forest Service to create a winter travel plan for snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (Read more about this here). We know all these things are coming down the pike—all these issues have been brewing, or they will be boiling very soon. So David Reichel and I—we work together teaching avalanche classes and ski guiding—we said, “We really gotta do this. No one has stepped up, and we really just have to go for it.” The Winter Wildlands Alliance has been supportive; they will be our nonprofit, fiscal sponsor.

“Geographically, it is a little more challenging than the Wasatch because the Wasatch is tight and small. Tahoe has the North Shore and the South Shore. Although it is all Tahoe, they’re different communities. We’ve got Nevada and California, so we have a lot of different agencies in different counties to contend with. As you are aware, we also have the Tahoe Regional Planning Association (TRPA), which is the big brother in the room that is supposed to advocate for the lake and all of the communities surrounding the lake.

“When we were talking about forming the organization last spring, we didn’t have any real timetable. We were not in a big hurry to launch the alliance, but as soon as the Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) paving project was noticeably taking away parking, the backcountry skiers almost pushed us into action. We were like, “OK, we need to start the engine and do it now.” We had an issue that everyone could rally around. The parking issue was a perfect catalyst to kick start our group because everybody can rally around the idea that the loss of parking is a bad idea.

“Our first goal is to see this parking issue through. There was a meeting on this issue scheduled for October 23 that has been postponed. We were going to rally people to come in and say, “What’s up with our parking?” But because Todd Offenbacher and Mike Schwartz (Tahoe locals) met with the TRPA and had a really positive meeting, the TRPA has pushed out a letter saying that they are going to postpone that meeting. They have chosen to go under advisement and now we are in a little bit of a wait-and-see period.

“There are a million nonprofits out there, so we are looking to be the voice of the skiers. We want to be an open, transparent organization where the locals, the skiers, can chime in and say, “This is what we want, this is what we need, this is what we see.” Then we can act for them. We are not looking to raise money or hold a ton of events; we just want to be a backcountry community. You need that local, grassroots power and enthusiasm to get stuff done and that’s what we are really hoping for.”

[3more]

Appears to be a lot of water moving in the atmosphere right now.

[skier666]

OCTOBER 2004!!!









...yes, the one time we made turns down Upper Cham before November.

[SDW]

Backcountry Mag reports on the newly-formed Tahoe Backcountry Alliance. http://backcountrymagazine.com/stori...ountry-access/

"Meyer, along with a few committed locals and friends in the Tahoe area, founded a fledgling backcountry organization whose mission is to be “the voice for the human-powered winter backcountry community in the Lake Tahoe area.”

Great to see an ambassador for the Winter Wildlands Alliance recognize the value of winter motorized access to public lands!

[LightRanger]

^^^ And Board member.

[lepistoir]

Great to see an ambassador for the Winter Wildlands Alliance recognize the value of winter motorized access to public lands!

By motorized, do you mean the cars?

[SDW]

By motorized, do you mean the cars?

Yes

[lepistoir]

Yes

Oh.

Is that what they call sarcasm?

[The Dad]

Oh.

Is that what they call sarcasm?

No. This is what they call sarcasm.

[RaccoonFace]

A little late, but TMRF checking in.

Nice to see this up.

okbye