Discovering Snow at Donner Pass Resorts – 03/10/14
NIGHT SKI SLUSH TO 6″ OF FLUFF?
Dates:
March 9th & 10th, 2014
Location: Boreal and Sugar Bowl – Donner Pass, CA
Weather: Warm clouds to sierra cement morning…
Riders: Slaythegnar, Holden
Photographers: Slaythegnar
POV Video: Nope – way too foggy for 85% of the day
Music: V.I.V.E.K b2b Goth Trad b2b Kursk w/SP:MC – Rinse FM 27/02/14
Java Porn: Espresso from St. Barts the week earlier…
Synopsis:
It was our time to head North. The North Shore of Tahoe to be precise.
With a warm storm looming for Sunday night into Monday morning, it was looking like a perfect opportunity to do a little night skiing at Boreal and then to shred some pow (hopefully) on Monday at Sugar Bowl.
We had a 5pm arrival at Boreal for some Daylight Savings slush fun. Boreal was perfect with warm temps, soft snow, and a glorious sunset…
A quick moving storm rolled into Donner Lake in the early AM on Monday. By the time the storm was finished, Sugar Bowl received around 6″ at the summit. I’ll TAKE IT!
DAY ONE:
And away we go!
With rain in the forecast we were pleasantly surprised to find some sun to end the first day of Daylight Savings…
Holden gets his first 5pm turns in…
They had the most perfect kids park for him to go huge….
So much fun for this little guy…
Box rails? Yes Please!
YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE PIZZA’D WHEN YOU SHOULD HAVE FRENCH FRIED…
Sugar Bowl to the South…
Northstar out in the distance…
7pm and the lights are just turning on…
That night at Donner Lake…we relaxed.
DAY TWO:
But in the morning it looked like this…
HWY 40 looking a bit like winter…
The kids studying the gameplan for the day….
NO HUCKING CLIFFS, GOT IT?
Meanwhile dad is trying to find some fresh lines in a cloud…
The top of Mt. Lincoln and Disney looked like this for most of the day…
However, mid-way down Disney lead to great visibility in the Hourglass and the Nose zone. The snow was thick yet supportable and game for a few laps of fun…
With the visibility slowly creeping up the mountain, Crow’s Nest seemed like the next logical choice. After finding some nice pitches on Crow’s Face it was time to try Disney again.
I decided to work the boundary beyond Sugar Bowl run and found some steeper untracked just as the sun popped out…
Yep, I can definitely feel the old snow underneath…
And right on schedule, there goes all the new snow…
A nice reminder to keep your safety zones open in a storm like this one….
At around 1:30pm, the Palisades finally came into view…
I decided to ski a few more laps out on Disney down Sugar Bowl run since it was skiing so well…
The snow was definitely starting to set up big time under the sun…
Certain things were just begging to be slashed…
It was a bit more chunky monkey below….
As the day progressed, so did the visuals…
Now that the summit of Mt. Lincoln had some clearing, I headed over to the 48′s to find some untracked…
The snow was wet but still damn fun to play around on….
Things got a bit more interesting on the lower aspect….
The Palisades definitely need more support from old man Winter…
Disney saying hello at the end of the day…
Snowball fight anyone?
Did we all have fun? Of course we did…IT SNOWED!
WILL IT SNOW AGAIN?