Author Archives: powdork

winter is here for reals now

Posted on December 17, 2012 by powdork

now that our little bout with springtime is over, lets get this winter thing underway. tuesday we were skiing corn. tuesday night it started to snow. is still hasn’t really stopped. wednesday toby and i hit up kirkwood both inbounds and out. once we started, each run got deeper and better and the tracks were filled between runs. it was my first day on my new lhasas, which i had mounted on the way out the door

they seemed to work ok

toby gettin sum of the deepest turns of the day

thursday rolled around and the skies were blue for a bit. the temps stayed cold and the sun hurt nothing. nacho and i hit up the red cliffs area outside kirkwood all morning. we had it all to ourselves (sadly). here is the damage
Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing | 3 Comments

the last day of spring, 2012

Posted on December 13, 2012 by powdork

the last day of spring was a strange one in 2012. mostly because it fell on december eleventh. the spring was filled with showers, but there were no may flowers.
there was corn though, and there was sun. and skiing is always fun

nacho and hutchski enjoying the scenery and spring like conditions

i’m the king of the mountain!

i’m the queen of the mountain!

but i still like to perform menial tasks. like building this bench
Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing | Comments Off

when in doubt, go skiing!

Posted on November 28, 2012 by powdork

woke up this morning with plans to hike with hutchski, nacho and two other doggies out to elephant back, or something simple like that. it was gloomy and we were hoping for corn conditions. i think we were playing cancellation chicken where neither one of us wanted to be the one to call it, but either one of us would have been ok with the decision. still, we loaded up the car and headed west, noting how things looked a tad less dark that way.
at carson pass, we put 3 out of 4 boots on before deciding it was too cold, windy, and rock hard to warrant heading out into the flat light. we opted to keep going to danberg in the valley. that way we could just take a low angle descent if everything is frozen solid. before we got to kirkwood, the open field to the left of the cliffs behind caples lake caught our eye. easy approach. appeared to bathed in what we were calling sunlight. low angle enough we couldn’t get in trouble.
these are taz (front and center) and yogi

and this is where we went. you already know nacho and hutchski
Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing | 2 Comments

winter storm brutus – weather channel product in review

Posted on November 12, 2012 by powdork

if you haven’t heard by now, the weather channel will be naming all winter storms.
this is how they determine if a storm is worthy of a name.
$$$

from weather.com
events that involve snow and ice or extreme temperatures or wind or a combination; that significantly affect travel; and that the network thinks people need to know about.
events involving a non-insignificant amount of fresh pow-pow
situations where cement of the sierra variety may be laid

brutus was such a storm. he came in with little fanfare other than being the second named winter storm of all time from the weather.com weather overlords. here in the sierra the call was for maybe 10-15″ inches in the best locations (kirkwood) over three days. before brutus, kirkwood had more snow already than they have opened with in past years. conditions had been good to very good for weeks.
10/24

Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, skiing | Comments Off

summer turns to winter

Posted on October 26, 2012 by powdork

with our ability to get our october skiing fix in (and keep our monthly streaks alive) in serious doubt here in tahoe, we decided to head north to the friendly confines of oregon. we would plan to hit a patc h on bachelor, or if we had to we could drive up to hood and actually pay for the opportunity. as the trip got closer it became apparent that we would likely have snow in tahoe when we got back so the skiing took a back seat to the climbing and general vacationing (drinking).
leaving town, ashley had to get something from her house with the keys back in her car. let the climbing begin

1st stop, sunset at emigrant lake outside of ashland oregon. nacho watches ashley’s first climb of the trip

this route sits by itself on the shore of the lake. i believe it’s called pocket change (5.8, part of aqua wall). definitely unsure though

i was up next. seemed fairly easy which is why i’m wondering if it’s the 5.8.
Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, climbing, skiing | Comments Off

fun times on tallac

Posted on October 6, 2012 by powdork

fall days make for great hiking and mount tallac has always been one of my favorite destinations any time of year. just the approach by car around fallen leaf lake is enough to get the juices flowing

neither ashley nor nacho had ever been, so it would be fun to head up with them on their first time.
nacho was stoked

ashley, not so much
Continue reading →

Posted in hiking | Comments Off

september, check. and some fun down south

Posted on September 16, 2012 by powdork

the bleak winter of 11-12 has left us with little in the way of choices for getting turns in the late summer months. we hit up dunderberg the first time in august and now we were back again to check off september.

this time we had to take al subie so we could only make it to alien head lake rather than all the way to jacks glacier.
4 wheelin

even so, the hike to the hidden glacier was a short one. we were making turns in no time.
hutchski on hidden (samurai) glacier
summer skiing Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing | 2 Comments

lassen volcanic park over memorial day weekend

Posted on June 1, 2012 by powdork

anyone in Tahoe knows the season isn’t over until at least memorial day, when we get our memorial day storm. this year would be no different, but most of tahoe has no base left, so volcano skiing would be our plan to reap the benefits. plans were made, shifts were covered, cars were packed
the playas
hutchy, a new mag

powdork (not so new)

longshortlong (don’t know why short is in there) and schralphmacchio

nickie

and of course our sponsored athlete nacho, who was a stowaway on this trip due to park regulations
Continue reading →

Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing | Comments Off

the new kirkwood (sucks)

Posted on May 8, 2012 by powdork

back on feb 22, 2012, vail resorts bought kirkwood mountain resort. since then things have been downhill. twice the resort has had to close or seriously curtail operations for inbounds avalanches. their airbag came out of it’s restraints and blew across the base area until derailing chair 6, an express quad, thus requiring an emergency evacuation. whilst these are extremely rare events, they are nowhere near as rare as the managerial screwups that closed out the season.

vail resorts announced that kirkwood would be open “until the snow is gone”. they are closed with a huge base by any other resorts standards. alpine (whose base is 1,000′ lower) is still open from the base.
for the first time ever midweek and 6-wood holders were denied access when their passes weren’t good on closing weekend despite the fact that kirkwood was closed all week when their passes would have been good.
vail resorts brought in security that went through backpacks and pulled passes on closing day. a typical vail move; atypical for kirkwood (and any other resort that cares).

Continue reading →

Posted in rants, skiing, Uncategorized | 2 Comments