Category Archives: backcountry

after making late july turns on round top it was apparent the flower show was going to be around a month late this year. wasn’t a problem, just another reason to come back. last friday, we did. the flowers did not disappoint

nor did the views

nor did the snow. thats round top lake, caples lake, and tahoe in the background

the snow was about as good as it gets in august
Continue reading →

it’s obvious we had a great winter last year. the rivers are still high, the lake is approaching it’s natural rim. the wildflowers are weeks or months behind schedule. some are going to have to skip this year altogether.
oh, and there is an abundance of snow. lots of snow. tons of snow.
so, lets go ride.
thursday, july 22nd at round top (carson pass)

Continue reading →

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

chris, mike, and brennan (and their head lamps) heading down off tryon peak

Continue reading →

tahoe is absolutely off the hook right now.

5.16.2011 – With reports of 20″ at squaw, we head to the wood to see what we see
method mike drops in off ski school

kfactor off the angry gremlin (it was funny watching him get to this)

then we found a cave

Continue reading →

schraphmacchio and i headed up to the stevens peak area sunday for a walk and some camera time. it was fun.
heading up

coincidentally, schraplh was heading the same direction

the scenery is ok

after heading up for, like, seven or eight hours, we got some down time
Continue reading →

well it’s hardly news that the skiing has been fantastic of late here in our little neck of the sierra. often times while skiing I relish in the solitude, clarity of thought, and freedom I get from skiing or just being out in the snow in general. this past week i was reminded how much fun it was to just share the fun with a bunch of like minded individuals. Let’s face it, tahoe’s ski bums are stoked right now, and it’s as fun to watch as the lines we’re skiing. why are we stoked? well we received over 100 inches in the past week starting with wet and heavy and ending with cold and light. the resorts have been going off and except for brief periods the backcountry has been fairly stable. they say picture equals a thousand words, so here’s about 4,300 words and a video too.

lake tahoe last week #3
http://vimeo.com/21404637

Kfactor, FranklezZ, and Method Mike are stoked

monday was a day of wet snow even at kirkwood. tuesday was much of the same.
here we have ‘Ottime on the rocks’.

or one could opt for ‘Ottime over’.
Continue reading →

Tahoe’s Junuary ran late this year, and through half of February. Then things got real good real fast. Kirkwood got close to (or more than, not sure) 15 feet in the last 2 weeks of February. We’ll just look at 2/23-3/1, skipping the comp stuff which will end up in that thread.

Video below

Wednesday 2/23 at Spurkwood Backcountry Resort
why that looks like a bluebird powder day, doesn’t it

it is. it is a bluebird powder day

Ottime goes HYOOODGE while patrol gazes in awe

then, he proceeds to go even Hyuger

Continue reading →