Ryan, Scott and I took a trip out to Lake Tahoe over Presidents weekend, and “epic” hardly describes it. We enjoyed four days of skiing at new exciting areas at the tail end of a storm that dropped over ten feet of powder!
The 8 Epics of Tahoe
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Ten Foot Storm: The storm that started a few days before our arrival and ended on our third day defined the trip. The storm dropped between eight and ten feet (depending on the resort and who you asked) after the Tahoe hadn’t seen snow for a month and a half. Had we not seen at least a bit of snow, we would’ve been three very sad musketeers.
Car buried in several feet of snow near Truckee -
I-80 opening mere hours before our arrival: We were pretty worried about being able to get to the Tahoe area at all on the trip. When we departed Denver, I-80 was closed with no sign of opening and cars backed up quite a ways. When we arrived in Sacramento, I-80 had opened while we were in the air. What a nice welcoming to California!
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Swimming through snow to get into the cabin: At one or two in the morning, when we finally arrived in Truckee, we found the cabin completely snowed in. The storm had created quite a barrier to the door of the cabin, where the snow shovels also happened to reside. So what did Ryan do…? He manned up and swam through the snow, quite literally. His form was surprisingly good for not having been in a ten foot storm for so long… I guess it’s kinda like riding a bike.
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Day One at Squaw: A run of infinite powder; double ski ejects; numerous head-over-toe tele falls; getting stuck for ten minutes, four feet away from a well plowed path; old faithful; people stuck in several feet of snow. Enough said.
Riding Scott Chair Up at Squaw -
Anti-climatic Jump from the Second Story: Ryan’s cabin experiences a ton of snow during the winter, and is easily snowed in. Apparently it’s common design in the Tahoe area to have an exit door on the second floor that leads to nowhere so that if the front door on the first story is snowed shut, you have a second exit opportunity. As such, we decided it’d be a good idea to jump the 8-10 feet from the second story outside into the 10’ of fresh snow. We expected it to be quite a challenge, with an initial burial of several feet followed by a difficult tunneling back to the front door (no path existed). It turned out that our planning and deliberation was unnecessary… the top layer of snow had compacted most of the snow, leaving us with 6-12” to sink into. It wasn’t much of a struggle.
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The Battle with the Chairlift: On day two at Alpine Meadows, Scott and I had a bit of a battle with the chairlift and lost, resulting in me falling off just as the chairlift took off and Scott lucking out with his releasable bindings and only loosing a ski. After the fall, I hopped on the lift with a couple ski patrollers who did a lot to make me feel better…
Ski Patroller #1: “Don’t worry man, it happens to everyone… well, it’s never acutally happened to me”
Ski Patroller #2: “Actually, I was going to say that it must’ve been pretty embarrassing for you.”
Classic.
Hiking Tahoe, stolen from Ryan's Flickr Album -
Fat Skis in a Little Suit: For day three, Kelsey, Ryan and I all went back-country skiing up near Donner Pass. I had my big, fat Shaman skis, but had brought my little skins that I use for my Madshus Annums. Unfortunately, the combo of the two made it nearly impossible to climb anything of even moderate steepness, and resulted in quite a bit of frustration. I finally ended up making it to the top, and enjoyed a quick 10ft cliff before heading back down.
Quick Cliff Drop on Donner Pass -
Finally Experiencing the Belgian Waffles: Our last day was spent at Northstar… the land of family skiing. All of the Tahoe resorts had Belgian waffle carts, but until the final day we had just smelled the delicious treats. Ryan finally bought a Belgian waffle, and confirmed that it tasted just as good as it smelled.