I wouldn’t normally write a post about lift assited skiing, especially Red Dog and KT, but it was just too good today to keep it quiet. The lifts didn’t open till 10:00 as Ski Patrol was obviously cautious after losing one of their own the day before. Thoughts go out to the family of the patroller that died. It takes a lot of work to get the mountain open and patrol takes risks everyday just to make that happen.

After they opened it was on!! Knee to waist deep blower pow everywhere. I have never been so tired after just one run in my life. Just about everything that could be hucked was. There’s a reason they call it Squallywood. Most of the people left around 1:30 which turned out to be great because the patrol opened west face and enchanted forest right after that. Just when I thought there was no more freshies to be had I got waist deep untracked till 3:30. I’ve never before had that deep of snow on KT that late in the day, Awesome!! Only got a couple pictures, but you get the idea.

Ryan sending it under Oly Lady

Merry Christmas from Lake Tahoe

Mammoth open for the season

Made the trip down to Mammoth for the weekend and they are looking good. We were really suprised by how much terrain was open. Although the snow wasn’t incredibly soft, it was still a lot of fun to make some turns.

Alpine Meadows Mad Cow Downhill

I tried my hat at competing in the mad cow chinese downhill at Alpine Meadows over the weekend. For those of you that don’t know what a chinese downhill is, it’s an all out, no rules, first person to the bottom wins race. The one and only prize is a midweek pass for next season. I spent the morning doing practicing runs and figuring out the best route to take. The last chair to the top was at 1:00 and the race started when ski patrol cleared the mountain. The snowboarders went first and then it was our turn. We had to start about 50 feet from our skis and when the avy bomb went off run to and then clip in before starting down. I had a good start and there was only one person in front of me for a while, but when I turned the corner to the main run I could see the winner was already far ahead. My knees told me that there was no point in continuing to go fast so I slowed down a bit and made it to the finish about mid-pack. I think that next year I will have a little more wax and take a little less practice runs.

Jackass Ridge after Work

Since I got back from Peru I’ve been working the day shift and it has really been eating into my recreation time. The singletrack in Truckee isn’t quite melted out yet which prevents me from riding my bike, so I’ve been looking for a quick short slope to ski after work. After looking around for about a week I caught my eye on the northwest facing slope descending from jackass ridge towards donner lake. Not a very long or steep slope, but just enough to get done before sunset and still be worth my while.

Skinning up from the train tracks

Looking down from the top

Looking back from across the highway

From car to car it took me a little more than an hour and although it’s not more than 500 vertical feet it’s better than going straight home after work.