Corned Chaos off Carson Pass, CA – 06/10/12

The LAST real ski days for TaHoE 11/12?

Dates:

June 8th – 10th, 2012

Locations:

Kirkwood….

Roundtop/Sisters (Carson Pass)…

Weather: Sunny, breezy and in the 50’s on the Fahrenheit scale

Ski Heroes:

S.P.C…

Skier666…

Photographers:

Skier666…

S.P.C…

POV VIDEO – ‘Corned Chaos off Carson Pass’

Music: Atari Teenage Riot – ‘Is this hyperreal’

Java Porn: Ritual Coffee SF with a 3 year old…

Synopsis:

It may be the last ‘real’ skiing in the Tahoe area as a byproduct of the less than stellar 11/12 season, but it may go down as some of the BEST corn skiing I have ever experienced. The trip started with an early Friday evening ascent and descent of the infamous Wall of Kirkwood. The utterly silky smooth snow heightened our expectations of the next two days off of Carson Pass. A couple inches from a late season storm last Monday may just have been our saving grace. The temps never got too hot but also never got too cold, thus providing perfect conditions to slay the corn. From the Moon Crescent zone to the perfect pitches down to Winnemucca Lake, it was a perfect last hurrah from a less than epic year.

BEGIN JOURNEY!:

An unseasonable cool air mass reaches the Bay…

Clouds are forming…

The next morning on the Kirkwood webcam…Oh My!

A few days later, we depart to see if any of that was sticking around…but saw this on hwy580…

In Stockton, corporate coffee and indie skis…

We arrive just in time to buy some liquids. S.P.C ponders this late afternoon outing…

Looking good on the upper one-half of the mountain…

Not exactly skiing back to the car eh?

S.P.C gets excited after passing some patches of snow…

…but he eventually arrives to the Wall glacier.

Only a few more steps and he’s on the summit!

The wind was ripping up on top, so he found shelter to drink his Gatorade…

The early evening views were magnificent…

As the sun begins to drop…S.P.C drops a carve with Caples view.

Wow, that looks pretty smooth!

Trenching…

Perfect GS Corn…

666 is giddy…

So worth the hike…expectations blown…

S.P.C makes his way toward the top of Chair 11…

But the sun is disappearing FAST!

Must hit brakes…

S.P.C carves down the patches of Buckboard in a sunsetting glow…

666 pretends it’s a normal groomer…yep, he’s an idiot.

When signed off the 11/12 season at the Wood…

‘I think we’ll hit this zone tomorrow’

THE VERY NEXT DAY!:

Even at 7am, the lake was rippled due to wind….

After some coffee, egg sandwiches, donuts, a red bull it was time to start walking from Woods Lake….

After a short 30mins, this came into view….

Winnemucca Lake screwing up my reflection shot…

Well, my gameplan was clear. I’m going to the freaking top!

S.P.C…well, I’ll leave that decision up to him.

The outside temp wasn’t bad, but the sun directly overhead didn’t help my sweat management…

Crampons helped…

And this is what it looks like on top….

You can still see the snow from the last storm earlier in the week…

Blue Lakes in the distance…

666 decides to ski down….

It was…….really good.

Carvetastic!

At this point….stoke happened.

Even with my quads burning, I kept going….yes, it was THAT good.

S.P.C gets into the action skiers right of my line…

…and then let’s them run.

S.P.C skiing during harvest time in Nebraska….

We decide to run it to the lake….

Yes, it was even good down to the lake…

Smoothie anyone?

Weeeeeeeeeeee!

S.P.C said it was beer:30, so we headed down to the car…

Apparently it was a long day…

Day Three!:

Calmer but colder, yet these dudes are slalom skiing with the outside temp in the 30s…

Tallac is showing signs of Summer….

666 decides now is the time to tune his skis…with scissors.

Headed up the same trail but decided to check out the Sisters area. The temps were cooler than the day before, so we scrapped skiing firm snow down to Roundtop Lake and instead milked some ridiculously good corn.