Tag Archives: sierra

Sierra Storm

With the forecast for today to be wet snow (r**n) and high winds, we decided to give our favorite tree skiing frontcountry tour a go, since it was higher elevation and sheltered (I didn’t have much hope in Kirkwood’s ability to run lifts in this weather, considering they weren’t able to run lifts during a recent sunny holiday weekend!).  I’m not sure what happened with today’s storm that was supposed to blow in wet and heavy, but the only thing we saw on our two lap jaunt was wind and the start of snow on the second lap.

We did a bit of this.

Uptrack

So the dog could enjoy the powder, as she’s as much of a snow addict as we are.

Powderhound

Conditions were surprisingly good.  While the snow was surprisingly light – and knee to thigh deep, there was a solid enough base underneath to make the skin up efficient.  And we were one of the few people out there. Overall a fantastic day.  And it’s dumping outside right now, supposed to continue all day tomorrow.    Hmm…is that the flu I feel coming on?

A Rant: Stupid Human Tricks

This summer in the Sierra, we’ve seen more bears, and they’ve become an increasing nuisance.  While some of this is no doubt due to the dry year, meaning less stuff for them to forage, a large (larger?) part of it is thanks to careless human behavior.   In Mammoth this has reached new heights.  N told me about an article in the free newspaper, The Sheet, about how bears are getting into the so-called bear proof dumpsters.  In some cases it’s because someone forgot to secure the latch, but in others, apparently, tourists, eager to ‘see’ a bear, deliberately leave their condo dumpster open.  For the fun of it. “Look honey, a bear! We can send our video to America’s Funniest Videos and earn our fortune!”

What these retards don’t realize is that they’re training the bears to see Mammoth as their personal feeding grounds.
And it’s a difficult habit to break, as rangers in Yosemite have learned (There’s a great article on the wily Yosemite
bears in the latest issue of Backpacker). So while the stupid Los Angelenos can take their photos, pack up the
Hummer and split, the locals will be the ones dealing with the repercussions of trash-hunting bears.

Alpine Meadows Avalanche

I’ve heard people talk about the horrific avalanche that struck Alpine Meadows Ski Resort in 1982.  With the recent massive snowfall, a few people have mentioned conditions this year are similar to those that led up to the event.  However, I’d never read a thorough article on it…until today.  It’s a chilling account, and makes me realize that wearing an avy beacon inbounds on a powder day isn’t such a bad idea.

 

Another day, another face shot

Who says you can have too many powder days? Not me, which is why we headed back to Sierra again today for a brief morning of untracked deep powdery goodness.  Another foot fell last night, and it was still falling during our fast-and-furious runs.  Light, dry snow that embodied the ethereal cold smoke that we powder skiers dream of.

This sort of snow encourages me to ski faster, steeper lines than I’d normally do, and today I ended up flying off pillowy jumps into more pillows…loving the velocity and the feeling of flying.

While we had a wonderful time, it wasn’t without a sacrifice.  Yesterday’s storms resulted in road closures all over the place (primarily for avy control) and thus many visitors were forced to spend the night in South Lake Tahoe and depart today.  We shared the road to the ski resort with about a million stupid drivers, or at least one idiot in the front of the line who forced the following 6 miles of vehicles to crawl along at 5 mph.  This was a universal story, however, for I heard equally horrific tales of driver inanity on the north shore.

The Myth of Sierra Cement

Having raced back from Oregon after hearing about the storm that whomped Tahoe (and with more snow on its way tonight), we decided to go to Sierra-at-Tahoe for the first time this season, as they received 58 inches (that’s 6 feet minus 2 inches) of new snow.  And while much of it had been skied out yesterday, we were able to find lots of pockets of deep fluffy powder, the kind that has practically no friction at all.  We danced our way through powder pillows all day, and even the snow that had been chopped up was creamy and fast.  The temperatures remained crisp all day, thus maintaining the snow conditions perfectly.

While the Sierra is reputed to get heavy wet snow, most of the storms that we see aren’t that bad, such as this last one.  However, bitter Colorado PR folks must have come up with that moniker-myth, for it’s rare that they see snowfalls measured in feet the way we do here.   And that’s fine by me, because it’s tough enough sharing this snow with the zillions of folks who showed up today.  Admittedly most of them were beginner snowboarders, which meant that we only had to fight the stupidity in the lift line.

 

Powder Day

It came, it snowed…and rained.  This weekend was the official start to the 2007 winter season, and despite the painfully late start, it seems here to stay.

The front that blasted in on Friday night came in quite warm, but was still snowing up at the resorts (7500 ft snow level that slowly dropped).  By Sunday morning Kirkwood was claiming 2-3 feet of new, and we knew that it was the place to be, despite the tendency to overstate snow totals.

We quickly learned we were not alone in our savvy decision.  While we got a good spot in our usual lot, it quickly filled up, and I learned that by 10 am westbound traffic was backed up to Caples Lake.  Oof.   Coupled with the slow openings of the lifts due to avy control, it was utter chaos.  We took a whopping 5 runs in 2 hours, since only chair 6 (the “high-speed” quad) was running to the top – with limited terrain open.  They finally opened chair 10 at noon, but our favorite traverse to the Palisades stayed closed until 2 pm.  We eventually got tired of the crowds, which never really dissipated, and decided to hit Luther Pass for a ski with the dog to counteract the utter madness of Kirkwood.

It was a good call for me (though I refused to acknowledge it at the time), as I skied harder and faster than usual, and ended up paying for it on Monday with painfully sore hamstrings.  Twas worth it!

Conditions are truly mid-winter at Kirkwood now, and should be mostly winter-like at other resorts (read: fewer rocks to worry about).  We’re Oregon-bound on Friday, and I’m hoping that by the time we return, the crowds of the holiday weekend will have helped reveal any rocks still uncovered…and that the next round of storms comes in heavy!

Precipitation, the double-edged sword

As much as snow is needed for recreation here in the Sierra, it’s also necessary for the water supply.  This season has been abysmally lacking in snow for both purposes, so the news of this weekend’s storm has made some people very happy, and others a bit less so.  The reason for the guarded optimism is the extremely warm temperatures that accompanied this blast, resulting in 7500+ foot snow levels today (apparently today’s the warmest day out of the weekend).  While it is snowing at the ski resorts, some are getting more snow of the clear variety at the lower elevations.

I decided to not go skiing today, as I just didn’t want to spend the day getting really wet.  This is worse than PNW wet, it’s tropical storm wet, it’s needing a second Goretex-jacket-to-get-through-the-day wet.  However, it is supposed to get colder tonight, so hopefully it will be snow that we see out our window tomorrow.

The “Wow” Factor

I was talking with some acquaintances the other day about Lake Tahoe and what makes it different from other mountain destinations.  The point of differentiation that kept coming up was the ‘wow’ factor, that point when you see the lake and the Sierra range coming over Spooner Summit, which is truly awesome.

It made me think about the other place I’ve lived at – Chamonix – and I realized that it, too has that same factor.  When you drive up the valley, as you come around a bend, you’re greeted with this immense vista of huge mountains and glaciers on either side.   And our other favorite local escape, the Eastern Sierra, has the ‘wow’ factor in spades.

Knowing that I’ve had the good fortune to live and play in these glorious places makes me realize why I could never move back to a major metropolitan area or an exurb or suburban area.

March Miracle

My god. It’s snowed almost every day this month, bar yesterday. The ski resorts have seen up to 12 FEET of snow this month. And there’s still more expected.

This is insane, in the best possible way. The first day of spring may be Tuesday, but I’m guessing the odds are greater that I’ll be skiing powder than watching daffodils bloom.

This has got to be doing good things for the Sierra snowpack.