North Tahoe weekend; Squaw Valley 4/9/05

jcrowleyjr

New member
I knew this was going to be the weekend I had been waiting for when I
had face shots on my second turn.

After a half-hour plus of stop-and-go getting through chain controls
on I-80, Friday afternoon at Sugar Bowl was yet another experience in
high wind skiing (a regular occurrence these last few weeks with these
spring storms, as March went out like lion and continued into April).
The benefits of wind-blown and few skiers outweighed any
inconveniences, however. Visibility dictated sticking to the Disney
quad (running below top speed) where I motivated enough to get in 10
runs in 84 minutes before closing at 4 pm. Sometimes, I was even
un-buckling/buckling on the chair, which meant I nearly fell out of it
just before the ramp at least once.

Saturday morning, the snow had stopped. In the lot at Squaw, it felt
like New England, with a biting wind, some humidity and overcast (if
it's not storming, overcast is rare; in that normally I'm more
concerned about sunscreen than anything remotely close to being
"cold"). 15 minutes before opening, got within 100 yards of the KT-22
lift maze before deciding not to bother. The bros-brahs (locals: "hey
bro; hey brah") were out in force and the line was out of the maze.

Decision of the day was to move over to Red Dog chair (Poulsen's, East
Gully, Far East, Red Dog Ridge), where we skied all morning and
enjoyed run, after run, after run, of dry bootop or above pow-pow.
Perhaps not full "Walter Payton", but close enough. Trees down low,
steep open big GS spaces up top. A couple narrow chutes if you wanted
in the middle. A short traverse here and there to maintain the flow.
Once - a one minute skate out on a cat track back to the chair. By 10
am the sun was out showing a classic Tahoe blue sky between some
clouds. Except for short access sections, we only crossed tracks
without choice after 11 am and even dropped over to the Resort (at
Squaw Creek) side and skied stuff I haven't done in a decade
(Rusty's). Compared to what else we could see going on (KT still had
a line and Headwall had full chairs), I was quite thankful for a very
relaxed scene.

Just before noon, we took 2 quick runs on KT (Rock Garden, Chute 75),
where I talked with Julia Mancuso in the line, who told us "it's just
the beginning" after I complimented her on such a great race season
(impending greatness in her World Cup racing career is likely). We
also took a half dozen on Headwall ("your grandmother could ski the
Slot right now"; Slot, Slot Nose, Light Towers, Classic, Hourglass), 2
on Siberia (closed huuuge cornices on Palisades), one on Silverado
(Beaver/Medusa Chute?), one on Gold Coast to get there, one on Granite
(Corkscrew?/Carnell's and Echo) and one (of course) on Shirley to get
back over. I can't recall, that might be it. As the afternoon moved
along, it was empty up there - having been spoiled by such a great
winter, the locals were "done" (I found the same thing at
Snowbird/Alta this year, but in that case they never even made it out;
albeit, in their defense, there was not much new snow around then).

Of those afternoon runs, the most interesting was the one on
Silverado. We hustled over there from KT after a liftie said "it
opens in 10 minutes". But before we got in there, I could see the
gates being closed as we skated on our approach. I slowed just enough
to ask one confused snowboarder why (mumbled answer) and then "raced"
to get through one of the remaining open ones farther down toward the
Solitude side (I was hoping to enter near Coleman's (?) and then ski
either the Tram side or below Bailey's to what I think is called
McKinney's). A moment later the approaching patroller ushered Brooke
through and he closed it behind us. Lucky we were! Firsttracks(tm)
down a section I haven't seen filled in for years. Minutes later, we
heard the telltale sounds coming up from the Valley, and then
witnessed from the lift a chopper close overhead approach and line up
a pickup of a nearly unconsicous ski stunt victim (pickup was out of
view as we ascended up to the ridge). Only details heard had to do
with a jump and losing a ski - heard later "that'll getcha every
time".

What a day - other than two short breaks to refuel while waiting for
another, I described it as "bell-to-bell" from 830 am to 4 pm (when we
met up post-ski with friends that had not skied with us, a new
transplant from SoCal said, "they ring a bell?")

Sunday morning back at Sugar Bowl opened with some winds that later
calmed, and a sky as clear as I can remember up there. The kind of
blue it hurts your eyes - not even jet contrails to break it up. So
nice out, there was a bit of a line at Lincoln Peak before it cleared
out with the noon hour. Buttery, cream cheese on the south and
western aspects and snow, snow, everywhere that had (again, I know,
same theme) filled-in early season lines in the Palisades.
 
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