tseeb
Well-known member
Friend, who is staying in timeshare across street from Heavenly gondola and has an extra parking space for me, and I got in not very long line for Stateline gondola that started loading early so we got on at scheduled 8:30 opening. He is from FL and had not skied since last Feb, so we did a warmup on Orion, an easy, wide intermediate groomer, then skied steeper Big Dipper on next lap. We rode Dipper three times and Comet twice, before exiting to lower NV via Crossover on 2nd Comet lap. After skiing main Comet groomer on our first lap, we met up with Krishna who I thought may have posted here as sierra_cement (no longer active on FirstTracks and I was wrong) and skied surprisingly groomed down the middle Milky Way Bowl. We went past patrol opening gates into Mott Canyon, then on next Dipper lap, Krishna and I skied some of Dipper Line and dropped into Dipper Bowl while FL friend repeated Big Dipper.
We spent rest of morning skiing lower/mid-NV lifts to avoid Dipper and Comet lines (it was extra busy as many passes were blacked out Sat/Sun of three-day weekend). Wind was strong enough at bottom of Olympic to cause some mis-loads. We only skied steep main North Bowl run once finding snow seemed ungroomed and re-frozen and when we checked out trees to skiers left, it was worse. Best run on North Bowl chair was Boulder Chute which was groomed although they must have run out of time (or grooming budget) as in the middle there was 8’ wide groomed chute with poles separating it from rest of 25’ wide groomed run. Krishna and I found some very good windsift following track to top of North Bowl chair rollover that we did twice. We took one lap on Emily’s on Stagecoach before Krishna needed to return to his place in Incline and FL friend skied down with him to take a break at Boulder lodge.
My break was to ski Mineshaft to Galaxy and eat my sandwich and part of my chips while sharing ride with guy from Kansas City who was glad to see Chiefs lose as he was originally from Bay Area. Sweet young snowboarder I’d ridden Stagecoach with said she was going to use Galaxy to get to Mott but left out the ~10 minutes of uphill skis-off hiking (and I sunk a couple of times on edge of groomer) required to get to where I could get under rope near lowest gate. I skied past two signs that said enter at gates only and during hike had employee ask where I was going. (He approved my choice of Motts.) E-facing drop to Motts was OK and my three other laps, Bill's, Lone Wolf (see photo from above and well below sign, used to be called Widowmaker) and right side of The Y were better although local knowledge required to traverse into two of them.
Much steeper than it looks in this photo.
I met up with FL friend at base of North Bowl only a minute past 130 meetup time by flying into and down Nevada Trail from top of Mott chair. We skied Upper North Bowl where blown-in snow had improved surface. We skied it and Boulder Chute twice. We then rode Olympic and skied against strong wind across too flat route to Tamarack Lodge to refill our water bottles. Tamarack chair had a little line on our first lap that mostly disappeared by our 2nd. The board there showed top CA and NV chairs, Sky and Dipper, respectively, had 12 min lines while next highest Canyon and Comet chairs were showing 9-10 min. We skied some nice windsift on Sam’s Dream, then always beautiful top of California Trail on our two Tamarack laps.
Before downloading gondola, where line was quickly building at 3, my Avocet had counted 25 runs and exactly 27K vertical. FL friend on gondola.
Beers would have been nice, but not at Vail prices and I couldn't have carried my own all day so we shared shot bottle of Blanco Tequila I had. I did have a beer while checking out friend's penthouse timeshare; 2 stories and bedrooms 2.5 baths with private deck, hot tub and BBQ. I returned to, cleaned and closed cabin. No traffic but a little slow going over Echo Summit and long drive leaving a little after 6 and getting home in 4 hrs.
We spent rest of morning skiing lower/mid-NV lifts to avoid Dipper and Comet lines (it was extra busy as many passes were blacked out Sat/Sun of three-day weekend). Wind was strong enough at bottom of Olympic to cause some mis-loads. We only skied steep main North Bowl run once finding snow seemed ungroomed and re-frozen and when we checked out trees to skiers left, it was worse. Best run on North Bowl chair was Boulder Chute which was groomed although they must have run out of time (or grooming budget) as in the middle there was 8’ wide groomed chute with poles separating it from rest of 25’ wide groomed run. Krishna and I found some very good windsift following track to top of North Bowl chair rollover that we did twice. We took one lap on Emily’s on Stagecoach before Krishna needed to return to his place in Incline and FL friend skied down with him to take a break at Boulder lodge.
My break was to ski Mineshaft to Galaxy and eat my sandwich and part of my chips while sharing ride with guy from Kansas City who was glad to see Chiefs lose as he was originally from Bay Area. Sweet young snowboarder I’d ridden Stagecoach with said she was going to use Galaxy to get to Mott but left out the ~10 minutes of uphill skis-off hiking (and I sunk a couple of times on edge of groomer) required to get to where I could get under rope near lowest gate. I skied past two signs that said enter at gates only and during hike had employee ask where I was going. (He approved my choice of Motts.) E-facing drop to Motts was OK and my three other laps, Bill's, Lone Wolf (see photo from above and well below sign, used to be called Widowmaker) and right side of The Y were better although local knowledge required to traverse into two of them.
Much steeper than it looks in this photo.
Before downloading gondola, where line was quickly building at 3, my Avocet had counted 25 runs and exactly 27K vertical. FL friend on gondola.
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