Monthly Archives: June 2011

skiing tahoe on the fourth of july

Posted on June 28, 2011 by powdork

well here it is the fourth of july and many of our normal summer fun time activities just aren’t happening yet due to the still giant snowpack in them thar hills. fortunately, many area resorts have taken a “if you can’t beat ’em you might as well join ’em” attitude, which we applaud. squaw valley, kirkwood, alpine meadows, and sugar bowl are all spinning lifts in some fashion over the holiday weekend.
here’s what’s on the table
squaw valley – open saturday, sunday and monday, july 4. the plan is to run the funitel, gold coast, shirley lake, links, cable car, and siberia. this is a way better offering than squaw had last year. squaw will have a free concert (big head todd & the monsters) along with a fireworks show on sunday, july 3. tickets are $49. next years passes are good. last years are not. squaw’s take

kirkwood – open only saturday and sunday from 7:30-2pm (chair 6 only). saturday is the volunteer fire dept bbq from 3-6pm. sunday is live music with the kingtones leading up to the sunday night fireworks show. tickets are $35. next years passes are good. last years are not. (last independence day at the wood)
dave lays down some tracks on 6/29/11 at kirkwood
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learning the tools – aperture

Posted on June 27, 2011 by powdork

the hardest thing to grasp for me as i move from a point and shoot in auto mode to a dslr in manual was the concept of aperture. i understand that aperture refers to the size of the hole that the light passes through, but that’s about it. i didn’t understand how i could use it to manipulate pictures. then i learned a bit about lenses, and how those with lower f-number had a bigger aperture and returned those artsy images with the shallow depth of field (dof). these are the images where the subject is focused with clarity and sharpness, but the background is blurred and fuzzy. the term is bokeh
here is an example of bokeh from camluvs7
dragonfly at 1/320, f/4.3, 32.6 mm, ISO 100

so there i was thinking aperture was kind of a one sided deal. you paid more and got faster lenses with wider apertures. the lower the better. right? one nice thing about the digital age is that messing up is nearly free, and takes up no time. it may take some of the edge and sense of urgency away from learning, but it also leads to happy accidents. here is one now. i was unfamiliar with the fact that the flash would reduce the shutter speed to a maximum of 1/200, and with a bright spring snowfield behind the girls, the background would be completely washed out, which is cool although not what i was looking for
skylyn and jasmyn at 1/200, f/5, 25 mm, ISO 100, compulsory flash Continue reading →

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the ebbetts moon

Posted on June 16, 2011 by powdork

we hatched a plan yesterday, and let it ferment a bit until it ended up being to ‘ski jobs sister and freel peak under the full moon’ in soft serve slush conditions. that’s not what happened. after dealing with all the logistics of leaving one car at high meadows, for the all nighters’ way out, we packed up the truck with the four of us and headed up fs 051 into horsethief canyon. wasn’t too long before we hit snow on the road. deep snow. deep snow that had already refrozen, despite the fact that we were at @8,500′, it was only 11:00, and it was 47 degrees outside. this meant our assault on freel would include an additional 2 miles of walking prior to starting our ascent to what would at best be very marginal conditions. for those not planning on staying all night, brennan and mike (who had to be at work at 7:30 am), it would mean that same walk again switch to get out. we hatched a new plan. ebbetts pass. there we knew we could get right out of the car and determine whether it was worth skiing, or not. when we got ebbetts, everything was frozen there too. but we knew we would have to get a little bit away from the road before we would know for sure.
mckinney reservoir and ebbetts peak under the light of the full moon

after parking at the pass we found nothing but scary firm snow. just before bailing i walked another 10 feet away from the road into some trees, and found good spring snow. we were on like donkey kong! once committed and heading out the pass ridge toward tryon peak, we soon realized that soft snow behind us would be all we see of that for the night
chris and mike hiking up towards the high point on pass ridge
full moon hiking

chris, mike, and brennan (and their head lamps) heading down off tryon peak
full moon skiing
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edgewood after dark

Posted on June 10, 2011 by powdork

i’ve been practicing my lack of light photography with my new camera lately, and edgewood is about as beautiful a place to do it as i can imagine.

here are some of my better recent efforts
edgewood after dark

edgewood after dark
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g-love couloir (et tu june, et tu?)

Posted on June 5, 2011 by powdork

well whoda thunk we’d still be posting pow tr’s here in june. yesterday (6/2) was one of those rare opportunities.
1. a pow day in june
2. a really good pow day in june with everything as filled in as it has been all year
3. a great crew, none of which had hit this line before
4. a round of golf on lake tahoe after skiing dry pow til 3:00 in june

on with the pics
heading up with a bit of a late start for this time of year (7:30). the sun was already doing it’s damage. in the background would be our warm up run, chamois
kirkwood