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Category Archives: backcountry
winter storm brutus – weather channel product in review
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
Posted in backcountry, skiing
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summer turns to winter
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.
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Posted in backcountry, climbing, skiing
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september, check. and some fun down south
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.
even so, the hike to the hidden glacier was a short one. we were making turns in no time.
hutchski on hidden (samurai) glacier
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Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing
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lassen volcanic park over memorial day weekend
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
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Posted in backcountry, doggies, skiing
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dog blog: nacho has a date
some of you know nacho, for those who don’t, this is him. a strapping 11 month old whippet-sheltie-aussie mix. very popular with the ladies
and this is sydney. sydney is cute
with a body to boot
it didn’t take long for them to hit it off
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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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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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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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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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