Heavenly, CA and NV 2/22/08 (and 2/23)

[tseeb]

Heavenly had 6 inches new which was enough to cover the firm layer from warm temps. previous weekend in most places.
It was a day of many firsts:
1. First time for my wife and son down Mott's Canyon.
2. First time I took them into Skiways off CA trail (untracked).
3. First time for my son into Maggie's Canyon.
4. First time for my son to ski the gondola (Firebreak).
5. First time this year that crowds did not dicate where you skied.
We went up gondola and skied powder on Dipper Chair all morning. The best was Dipper Woods. The top of Motts was good, but partway down Sunnyside, the easiest way, the hard layer could be found. My wife was too tired from skiing powder all day so she rode gondola while my son and friend joined me on Firebreak. The top 2000+ vertical feet was mostly untracked. The bottom 1000 vertical was pretty good, but fresh snow was not as deep or untracked. We came out across from back driveway to Harrah's where car was parked. 14 runs and 19.2K vertical again

 

[kingslug]

I'm heading up ther Saturday. I heard from a local that they got pretty pasted these last days. Can't wait!

 

[tseeb]

My wife and I left the two 16 year-old boarders sleeping at the cabin and got on the gondola at 9 am on Saturday 2/23. Since we have passes we thought it worthwhile getting in some runs ahead of the storm which was supposed to hit hard that afternoon. We went up Tamarack and skied CA trail to Sky Chair to get in some laps before it got crowded.

At 9:30, we were already using the singles line to avoid crowds who were already there. Since my wife needed to warm up, we cruised down Ridge Run, with me cutting into the trees ahead of Ridge Bowl. There was a little powder left from previous days snow that ended early in the evening. Heavenly claimed 3" on top of 6" and 1" on preceding days. Powder was still to be found by going close to trees and next to runs and in steep gullys. We went up less crowded Canyon Chair three times with my wife working her way through the groomers and me finding powder. We went up Sky Chair and came down Ellie's, which held powder in the steeps on skier's left near the bottm, once. The lines were getting very long so we returned to Nevada.

We tranversed high into Milky Way Bowl and found some good powder in the trees before getting to Mott's. My wife continued to Dipper chair while I made one turn into Killibrew before decided the hard crust did not have enough coverage on the South-facing slope and hiked up and over into Widowmaker which was much nicer. Mott's had a short line as it did on previous day. Next run I came partway down the Y before cutting right into the powder below Rocky Point.

I met my wife at Comet chair at 11:30 and the promised snow had started. We skied over to Olympic and started down Firebreak gondola run which she missed out on previous day. My wife took at hard fall in the foot deep powder about 500 feet down and had a hard time getting up since she was close to a treewell. We decided to traverse her back to Olympic chair where she could get to gondola as we didn't want to get down too late. I made a 20 minute 3,300 vertical run down Firebreak which was my third time skiing the gondola this year. I stayed skier's right much further this time and found good snow down to 7,000 feet. I cut over a little late and had to cross a gully with running creek on a small snow-covered log. The bobsled-like track at the bottom was frozen and giving snowboarders a hard time. I got back to car at 12:45 with 10 runs and 14K vertical.

After lunch at the cabin and packing and cleaning we got on the road at 3 pm. It was dumping, but snow level was high so we were out of chain control in an hour and back in San Jose at 7:30. We heard that pass closed at 6 pm due to avalanche and following day Heavenly had 18" new.