Following the Northstar and Squallying to Da’ Wood – 02/20/12
It actually snowed…a bit
Date:
February 12th – 20th, 2012
Locations: A few of them…all in the TAHOE REGION OMG!
The big, the bad….NORTHSTAR!
The tame, the lame…SQUAW VALLEY USA!
And Introducing KIRKWOOD…(also known as VAILWOOD)
Weather: Flat-light, some sun, some clouds, some snow…
Riders: Skier666, S.P.C , DaveP & Kelly, SSD, MildBill, Sean from SF, JMetzler, Jrosen32, dblatto, and Slim
Cameramen: Skier666 and S.P.C
POV VIDEO – Squallying over to Da’ Wood – 02/20/12
Music: Need for Mirrors featuring DRS – D.F.T.F
Synopsis:
We are still under 100 inches of total snowfall (as of the last day in this report), but there’s still skiing to be had if you look hard enough. With a planned trip to North Lake Tahoe before Valentine’s Day, and as luck would have it, a fairly decent storm dropped close to a foot of blower over Squaw Valley on the morning of February 13th. Fast forward to President’s weekend and Kirkwood was skiing quite nicely in and out of bounds. Pray for snow. 🙂 Its seems to be working….
Sunday, February 12th, 2012:
The morning was filled with another warm walk to Fort Point with the kids…
With uber dry roads the wife and I were on the slopes at Northstar for a late afternoon shred session in around 3 hours…
Squaw from the Backside at Northstar…
Skiing was horrendous, so we grabbed a few cocktails at the new lodge…and took in the views of the upcoming storm…
The storm dropped around 7 inches that night…
…but once the groomers were skied off, there’s not much else to do due to the low snowpack…
After looking at Squaw…I headed there to meet up with Obscure Reference
Parking lot was nice and full so I expected moguls everywhere by now (11:30am)
Headwall not looking bad at all…hmmm
So…we take a lap in the Slot
…and below we didn’t find moguls
…but we did find patches of this:
On Siberia, Obscure had an idea…’how about we ask Patrol if the Palisades will open?’
Sure enough, Patrol turned the sign after we asked…heh
Hmmm…how will that debris be down there…it didn’t snow THAT much…
So we headed for first tracks down National…
Obscure had to leave after a few Granite laps down Corkscrew, so I decided to lap KT for the rest of the day. (hint: see video above)
The next morning I lapped groomers at Northstar before heading back to SF…it was quite nice.
Time to wash the car…in the gorgeous California sunshine!
A few days later, the boy and I headed up to Tahoe South for the holiday weekend…
Saturday February 18th, 2012:
Stevens Peak on the way to Kirkwood…
MildBill races down Ski School…
Jrosen32 makes an appearance in Main Street…
This is what it looked like….
JMetzler gets in on the action…
Looking pretty good right?
That’s right! Variable POW POW!
Boulevard still has some crap in the middle and I really don’t want to down-climb…
SSD just freaking RAILS a shitty snow turn…
Getting so god damn deep….
OH SNAP!
MildBill makes a turn near a forest….
dblatto gets hella crazy in a sepia turn…
Sean from SF finds a deep spot near Temple of Doom…
And then pulls some steepness in a wide angle style in Ski School…
S.P.C escapes rather quickly while I almost fall off this thing trying to capture the shot…
On Oops EP (Dan Cliffs), 666 goes for it…
On Oops LP, S.P.C finds wintery snow…
The next morning , the little guy and I slay chair 7 & 9 prior to ski school…
Then his papa skis an exposed line on Norms…
With dblatto, DaveP & Kelly, and Sean from SF in tow, we headed up here…
Nice day on Mars…
This shot screams war zone, not ski field….
Ah, even without snow, the Sierra is pretty….
Where is that guy going?
Don’t worry, he’s been there before….
Looks worse than what it really is…I guess
Yep, that’s the problem area for my 192cm Jag Sharks…
Ugh….almost there…
Sean from SF arrives from around the corner in a stoked fashion…
Dblatto makes a turn on some epic snow…
…and yet again, goes sepia on us…
Down to Emigrant Lake looks great…but its not.
Vista was good though…damn good.
Day 3 and we are having a blast!
MildBill and I have a line picked out, can you find it?
Frosty morning with a massive 1” of overnight snowfall…
He starts his descent…
Gathers his bearings…
Makes a turn near a wall…
another turn on snow….and he’s out! Yippie!
Super steep, not deep…
Slim sessions all that overnight fresh….
Emigrant glacier bank…
Lap 2….MildBill gets nutso….
…and makes a TURN!
He’s familiar with these next steps…
But a couple cooks scraped the landing a bit…
Yep, right there…
Fun line…
Slim found a deep patch on lap 2….
Back on Vista, MildBIll turns on the turbos…
And then I go into father spy mode at Timber Creek…
Yep, they are in the Ditch of Doom, or Terror, or whatever it is….heh
Hey, slow down mate!
And a nice sunset after a sweet weekend of skiing…
…and 5 feet of blower is expected in the next 48 hours at time of posting 🙂