chad was up for a rare full day off and the conditions were primo and stable. our original plan was to meet up with another friend, rick, and hop on chair 10 at opening bell, make our way to the backside, and then lap melissa coray peak several times. it was a good plan, and with our crew we could have nailed some good lines and made several laps. but the lure of the tour was too much so we opted to head up to carson pass and hit kirkwood from there.
we started out at 9:45, and despite the fact that it was saturday and conditions were fantastic and stable, we had to break trail the entire way from one of the busiest passes in the sierra. we knew it was gonna be a good day.
chad and rick with another day’s destination in the background
winnemucca lake and elephant back in the background
rick dives into life on the edge
chad takes the next line over
it’s a long line for these parts
and a good one
in the perma-shade of melissa coray peak, chad milks some pow turns
from top to bottom the snow went from dust on crust to crust on pow to crusty pow to blower, with the lower 800′ being all blower
our run down sally alley off melissa coray
the whole tour (well, minus the uphill and about half the downhill)
then we bypassed temple for mini-temple
after another short emigrant lap we made it down and back to our car for the drive up to carson pass, where we found this. we could only assume kirkwood had caught fire.
