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Author Archives: powdork
the jobs sister slog
i got call the night before from brennan, who threw some options down on the table. He had never done jobs sister from heavenly so that was gonna be our choice for the day. after dropping one car at the top of high meadows we took off for stagecoach lodge. We don’t actually have privileges at heavenly so the discussion turned to turning around and marching up from high meadows. we knew it was a long day in a short time frame, but we both wanted to get our slog on, so up we went.
around 8,000′ things got sticky in a miserable fashion. brennan not loving the slog right now
in fact, the glop was so bad we couldn’t wait to be marching up scree
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Posted in backcountry, skiing, Uncategorized
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pray for snow my ass. go find it!
the plan started in late december when i posted that i would be heading somewhere after new years eve to find solace in some recent snows. i heard from gimpy, franklezz, h-atlas and others. there was interest. it seemed like the best plan for success was with h-atlas. problem is, we had never met. so we would meet at kirkwood the Saturday before (we were leaving sunday, new years day). we never did meet, but spoke on the phone. she was leaning toward crystal, a trip i couldn’t make, but was going to check the weather when she got home from the wood. despite persistent pleas from her friends she heeded the noaa forecast which called for rain in washington so we made plans to head for bend to meet a friend of hers (someone else neither of us had met). long story short, monday we headed to dutch flat trailhead to see what tumalow mountain was all about. tumalow is across the street from mount bachelor and offers easy backcountry access, but rather short pitches even by tahoe standards. i’m guessing with a full snow pack it would be rather tame as well. we loved it though. our first run much made the 8 hour drive worthwhile. and things would only get better from there.
meghan heads toward tumalow mountain, which is definitely holding some of tahoe’s snow
looking back at bachelor. the next day the top would open for the season
after a warm up run, meghan drops into something a little steeper
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Posted in backcountry, skiing, Uncategorized
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holiday options beyond the corduroy
well we all try and paint a happy picture of it, but let’s face it, the snow is not. it just isn’t.
so what to do while your spending your christmas vacation in a snowless south lake tahoe? follow along and we’ll help as we can.
highway 88 hijinks – get thee to kirkwood. here you can ride the lifts, but if you decide not that’s okay too. bring the family (and the dog). some can hike, some can ride, some can hit the kicker onto the airbag from USAirbag (highly recommended). on the way back (no need to stay all day, the sun goes behind the ridge around 2:45) you can stop by caples lake and play on the ice (this is very dangerous. the ice could break. you could fall, and the ice could not break. use at your own risk, but have fun). the pictures (and video) below are added to give you the illusion that tahoe is still fun. don’t be fooled.
skiva las vegas
for 37 years thousands of skiers would migrate to las vegas once a year. 2009 was the last year the snowsports industry association held their show in las vegas. we would return in 2011. this time in search of snow. it is a sad state of affairs in lake tahoe when you have to head to vegas for freshies, but that’s just what we did.
hopped in the trusty subie at 5:30 pm on 12/13 and headed south. fast.
2 days after the last lunar eclipse for several years, the moon was still up to some tricks. as she rose there were strange moonbeams shooting up and down and she seemed to weave i and out of the clouds.
as we headed south we watched the geminid meteor shower give quite a show. almost got this one from our 0 degree camp site.
we camped about 500 vertical feet above the uppermost joshua trees
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Posted in backcountry, skiing
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lunar eclipse over tahoe
headed out early in the morn to shoot what was supposed to be the last total eclipse of the moon until 2014. from a thread on tetongravity.com i knew that it would be at 13 degrees above west and that i would need to be back about 1 mile for every thousand feet of mountain in front of me. the idea is to get the best part of the eclipse when it is closest to the horizon. i chose camp richardson because i could park real close and if i was wrong about the angle i could walk out the pier far enough to fix it. i think it worked out. there is almost a three thousand foot elevation change between camp rich and jakes, and camp rich is about three miles back.
Posted in photography
Tagged eclipse, moon, night, photography, sunrise
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3/4 moon on round top
having gotten some recent info that things were looking good at carson pass, and armed with a new pair of bros, toby and i headed up to round top at the crisp early hour of noon:30. we headed up towards the couloir and ran into two other like minded souls. they had already skied the lookers left shot (which was the one skied the previous day giving us our info) and they were headed back up to ski the center couloir. this left us the main coolie.
the guy holding his ski had gotten himself into a pinch by skinning up to where he thought he could switch over. as soon as he stepped out of his skis he started to slide on the 4 inches of snow covering last years ice. he started well above the legs you see in the top of the pic. i was all, “yay, ice”.
the two others headed straight up while we took off to the right out of view.
the texture just above toby is last years snow sticking out. it was not pleasant
after two good turns above, toby is in a somewhat controlled slide on the ice layer
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Posted in backcountry, skiing
Tagged backcountry, carson pass, moon couloir, round top, skiing
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alpine meadows and kirkwood team up. is there more to come?
november 9, 2011 update
turns out there may have been a bit more in store as rumors of a JMA/KSL purchase of kirkwood have been circulating for a while. now they are starting to surface and the details are a bit sketchy, but here is the gist. the alpine/squaw merger may be toast due to problems clearing escrow. the announcement of a jma (alpine)/kirkwood merger is imminent. we’ll see how the pieces fall.
news is hittin’ the inter toobz that alpine meadows and kirkwood will are offering a combined pass this season. alpine already has it posted on their site. The unfiltered pass now includes unlimited skiing at alpine, and a full season pass at kirkwood with blackout dates around xmas, presidents day, and mlk day. for kirkwood passholders, you must have the premium pass in order to receive an alpine meadows pass. at this time, the kirkwood premium pass (which also includes special line privileges) is selling for $500 while the unfiltered pass is $699 (kirkwood’s web site has not updated since the news broke). there is no info on the alpine page about whether kirkwood’s premium pass will also include privileges at homewood and red mountain (alpine passes include these). presumably they will since alpine passholders are also getting benefits at durango mountain resort. Continue reading
Posted in skiing, Uncategorized
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whitney in a day
stu has been on my ass for the last month about a whitney trip, which is an annual thing for him. given i’m unemployed until december i had run out of reasons not to go, plus it’s a beautiful challenging hike. the trail itself is typically easy, but it does get spicy this time of year. plus we were doing it as a day hike, which means 22 miles and 6,000’+ elevation change. not unpossible, but the days are short and the nights are cold and the trail has a lot of snow this year. my buddy greg decided to join us as well, never having been before. after picking up our permit we headed up the whitney portal to see what was up and talk to some exiting hikers about conditions. they all said traction devices were needed, advice that greg and i heeded.
lone pine creek at whitney portal
then we headed back down to the alabama hills, just off movie road to set up camp. the alabama hills, named after the css (confederate states ship) alabama, were the movie location for many movies including westerns such as ‘how the west was won’, as well as current flicks like ‘iron man’ and ‘transformers – revenge of the fallen’.
plus, they had a great view of our objective
that’s when things got subjective
what a sunset over whitney and the alabama hills
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a great start to the season – october pow
just like last year, october 6th would be my first real powder day of the year. both years i skied on the 5th, but the turns were back seat and tentative. both years on the 6th we were able to turn the throttle up.
looking down my first run of the year (october 5th)
looking back up after two laps. the tree on the rocks in the center was the point of the last pic
further down i found some worry free turns
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Posted in backcountry, skiing
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squaw valley to require pre-employment drug screen
from squaw valley’s online employment application
PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE SUBMITTING APPLICATION Pre Employment Drug Policy I understand that, as a condition of my employment, I will be required to submit to, and voluntarily agree to submit to, a drug screen and to any procedure to assess my qualifications for employment.
however, other pages on new.squaw.com say otherwise…. Continue reading
Posted in rants, skiing
Tagged andy wirth is worthless, drug screenng, ski resort, squaw, squaw valley buys alpine meadows
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