Hayduke, That was my story last year, I should have stayed longer as it seemed like on a lot of trips I was leaving just when the big storm was starting to hit. With a Heavenly pass, it didn't matter as much because the top would always close and sometime the whole mountain would shutdown for a day or two. I will have to do more solo trips this year so I can be more flexible. I could have gotten out of work yesterday, but had Christmas and Christmas Eve dinner shopping to finish and two teenagers who had already used the two teen tickets I had gotten at Costco plus two Tahoe Card tickets.
This first trip of the year was my shakedown to get on the snow before Christmas and plan better for New Year's Day when my $229 pass will again be valid. I couldn't find my Avocet Vertech watch so vertical is more estimated than usual and when I went to my storage to get ski rack and other gear, I was sidetracked getting Christmas decorations and forgot about the rack. Since we only had one pair of skis and two teenagers with snowboards, we went without the rack. I had Michelin LTX M/S installed on Sat. at Costco in Santa Clara. It was not supposed to storm until late Sunday, but we starting getting drizzle leaving Stockton. Going through Pine Grove, elevation 2500, the bank thermometers said 38 and 39 degrees so I thought it would be snowing at 4500-5000 feet, but it didn’t start until 6500-7000. After Silver Lake (elevation 7200), I saw a Tahoe that I think was going the other way, with its front end in the snowbank. Around the next turn, a Highlander and another vehicle going my way had stopped going forward were slowly sliding sideways across the other lane into the bank. I made sure I had room, stayed to the right where there was more unplowed snow and cruised by at 10-15 mph without a problem.
The season pass line was less than 10 minutes, then I made the mistake of getting on Solitude where I had recommended my son and his friend warm up. The lift stopped for a good ten minutes. I caught up with them and we skied down to The Reut chair where we found some untracked on Conestoga. Next run I found more lightly tracked under the lift on skier's left side of the chair. I moved over to high-speed Cornice where I followed person I rode the lift with down Olympic where we headed down the gullies about halfway down and found some good snow and pretty good coverage. We did that two more times and then I move to Sentinel where I was the only one skiing the little trees to the left of the bowl. I found a lot of untracked and did that four times including twice going down the gullies to Hole-in-the-Wall chair.
I went into Bubb’s Pub to watch the end of the 49ers game and was surprised to see them turn a 3-16 deficit into a 17-16 win while I had a Porter and a Power Bar. After lunch, I headed to Olympic where it was snowing so hard that tracks were being refilled. Since The Wall was open, I went up where the snow at the top was in excellent condition and I was able to find untracked by staying to the right of the chair. I got back to the car to find 6-8” had fallen during the day. 15 runs, estimated 17.5K vertical with some powder every run. I’ll post Monday’s report and try to get better at matching picture limitations when I have more time. Merry Christmas!
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