This weekend at Tahoe, 1/8/05

[Tony Crocker]

I am at a http://nasja.org event, fortunately hosted by Northstar. Fortunately because we are experiencing a huge storm that started early Friday morning and showing no sign of letup. Northstar is the most sheltered Tahoe area, and even here the Backside chair was closed for wind after lunch. But not before I had 7 tree runs there this morning in 2+ feet of fresh. The Lookout chair (shorter but steeper) was still open for 4 runs this afternoon. For this we were on a complimentary tour with a Northstar instructor, who gave us useful tips on skiing the cut up powder. But it's still dumping and everything will be filled in again tomorrow morning.

I was supposed to go to Mt. Rose tomorrow and sample the famed Chutes. Obviously the Chutes will not be open in this weather, and in fact today (which was supposed to be the "official opening ceremony" for the Chutes) the road to the ski area was not even open. I will have an interesting drive back to SoCal tomorrow afternoon/evening.

 

[asrosen]

My son and I actually did our last day of Tahoe skiing at Mt. Rose on 1/8, driving up (with some trepidation) in the blizzard from S. Lake Tahoe! We didn't get to the Chutes, but they were open for about an hour. A long-time local skier told us he was skiing in snow up to his chest there. We had several amazing runs in the morning on other trails (in nice, but not champagne, powder) in snow up to our thighs, after which the winds seemed to be gusting at 40 or 50 mph and the conditions were virtual white out. Only one lift remained open at 2.

The mountain, however, was great. Terrific food at non-Heavenly prices, and all the staff were dressed for Elvis Day. Very refreshing.

FYI, the day before skied Heavenly on the Nevada side through the trees(only 3 lifts were open on the entire mountain) in a couple feet of the same kind of powder.