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raytseng

Making fresh tracks
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Don't come if you're going to be frustrated if things aren't going to be perfect with a trip. There's no guarantee of conditions, and nobody should have to be burdened to convince you, if you want to go somewhere else, go with your heart go there; mother nature does not care.
 
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Eleeski

Making fresh tracks
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San Diego / skis at Squaw Valley
@neonorchid Spring skiing in Tahoe is the best! Late march gives you good odds for excellent spring conditions. Sometimes there are good storms with nice powder (and lots less competition for the untracked) but the storms pass quickly and it reverts to spring conditions pretty quickly. I've been up for long weekends that started with a foot of nice new snow and ended with sweet spring snow. Should be a fun time. Bring bump skis!

Today at Squaw was busy. Full parking lot by the time we headed over (which wasn't that late). The Far East was pretty mediocre. Took the wrong cutoff and missed Olympic Lady which was open and very crowded. If there's a line at Squaw, it's usually pretty good. But the hike and long line discouraged us so he headed up the mountain.

The Funitel was not too busy so we were encouraged. Gold Coast had a manageable but long line. It was threatening to storm but just ended up cold, windy and poor visibility. Shirley was wind sheltered with fine snow. There was a sweet soft bump line we enjoyed. Granite looked way too busy so we took Shirley out.

Down the mountain to escape the people. The lower half of Tower 16 was really fun and we ended up at KT.

Not a bad line and the weather had improved. Good visibility. So we channelled our inner Ryan Nason (the crazy bump buddy) and headed to West Face. As good as it gets! There were a couple nice bumps mixed with soft snow. The middle of the hill was flat with powder refills. The bumped parts were nice and soft. Fantastic!

A couple laps of this and we were spent. Time for lunch. Too busy everywhere. Ended up at the Sushi bar. Long lunch. Fun laps at Red Dog and the Resort which the inch of snow had improved them a lot.

We did share the mountain with a lot of people but it never felt too crowded (except when trying to find lunch). Fun day!

Eric
 

Mendieta

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Looking for a go to ski destination, thinking I could make last week of this month (March) work but unshure of conditions, chances for new snow powder day(s) and decent soft snow, not gloop and seiera cement. Long term (two weeks out) weather reports for Tahoe Heavenly seem to be trending toward the warm side up above 32º at base elevations and up.

Can any here help convince me Tahoe (Heavenly & NStar) conditions could/would be worth the long cross-country flight, time and expense at the time of year this ski season?
Alternately I'm thinking CO is closer with many direct non-stop flight options and higher elevation...

I think CO or UT are more likely to have what you are looking for, especially fresh storms. I have only skied a little over four years, so please take this with a grain of salt, or two. But I spent two spring-breaks in Deer Valley, both had snowfall, and the snow was beautiful, in spring. And yes, here it is mostly sierra cement. Particularly if it snows late in the season.

Why would you come here? Well, the answer is obvious, to see us :) Seriously, I would look at this the other way around. Assuming you are thinking of coming to Tahoe one of these years, this is a great year. GREAT, not good. Look at this: https://opensnow.com/dailysnow/tahoe/post/14463 . N* has already twice as much as now as usual by this date. To Eric's point above, it's just a great season. If you check the stoke a few pages up in this thread, it's just beautiful.
 

Andy Mink

Everyone loves spring skiing but not in January
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I met up with @bushpilot this morning at Mt. Rose this morning for a little tour around the mountain. We had a little surprise of 4-6" of super light fluff. The top of the mountain and Slide side were socked in but the Rose side wasn't too bad and the snow was great. After a bit it cleared enough to head over and do show and tell on the Slide side. Again, beautiful snow. Bushpilot stayed on Slide to poke around in the trees and I headed back to the Rose side to meet up with @AKMINK and some other friends. Great day, no crowds.
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Bushpilot (Frank)

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AKMink (Ann)
 
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ScotsSkier

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^ Great videos!

Looking for a go to ski destination, thinking I could make last week of this month (March) work but unshure of conditions, chances for new snow powder day(s) and decent soft snow, not gloop and seiera cement. Long term (two weeks out) weather reports for Tahoe Heavenly seem to be trending toward the warm side up above 32º at base elevations and up.

Can any here help convince me Tahoe (Heavenly & NStar) conditions could/would be worth the long cross-country flight, time and expense at the time of year this ski season?
Alternately I'm thinking CO is closer with many direct non-stop flight options and higher elevation...

Is that ypu goose? ogsmileogsmile
 
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Eleeski

Making fresh tracks
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Skied Alpine today. Alpine is a really nice mountain. I hope that the interconnect goes in and Alpine and Squaw join for real - the bus just isn't the same even if the drivers are nice.

Hot Wheels is scheduled for replacement. Good! That chair is so slow! Fun terrain for skiers needing to regain confidence. Actually the draw for today's outing. Yellow ended up being the chair of choice for them - perfect. We went off to Summit and skied the bowl on lookers right. Steep soft snow up top some fun bumps down lower (Wolverine? I don't know Alpine that well. But I should!). Some really fun laps before lunch.

No cookies at the lunch spot cafeteria.:nono:

Up Summit for exploring after lunch. A couple fracture lines and some debris made an interesting entry to Alpine bowl but skiing under the Alpine chair gave us some fantastic lines. Up Scott chair and I was drooling over the really enticing bump lines right under the chair. But the group wanted to explore so we headed to Lakeview. It is pretty at the top of Lakeview. Over to Sherwood. I'm on some funky old skis (my friend was trying my first string skis). I never wax but yesterday convinced me that these skis needed wax. Even with a fresh wax, the flat road over to Sherwood was a difficult flat trail. Nice drop to Sherwood chair.

At the top of Sherwood chair, I asked a patroller what was best. He recommended Sherwood bowl. A short hike to a flat traverse trail worked us over. Oh my, it was awful. Apparently the soft sunny bowl had refrozen. Or the patroller hated us and was messing with the tourists. We all survived but burned the time for our lap in the bumps under the Scott chair. The steep chutes right off the top of Sherwood were, steep! And really fun in nice soft snow. Ducking under the tree arch in Hot Wheels gully ended an excellent day.

An Alibi Porter and some girl scout Samoas reminded me how much I like the Alpine bar. We made the last bus back to Squaw for a fun day. I'm really wanting that gondola interconnect!

Eric
 

Alexzn

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Squaw was great yesterday, probably one of the best snow conditions I can remember. Sunny and everything was smooth and packed snd feeling like the best windbuff. Windbuff is common at Squaw, but I never seen it literally everywhere. The mountain is so filled that some area that are usually gnarly have become rather accessible. I took a coupe people on Light Towers for their first time, easy entrance, easy skiing and no cliffs to watch for, everything buried. That terrain was so swarmed yesterday that you had to dodge other skiers. I never thought I’d be describing Light Towers as a crowded run!!! Even though I only had 2 hours of sleep due to some flight delays and DST time change, I didn’t want to quit, the snow was that good.
 

laine

I ski like a girl. Fast.
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Squaw was great yesterday, probably one of the best snow conditions I can remember. Sunny and everything was smooth and packed snd feeling like the best windbuff. Windbuff is common at Squaw, but I never seen it literally everywhere. The mountain is so filled that some area that are usually gnarly have become rather accessible. I took a coupe people on Light Towers for their first time, easy entrance, easy skiing and no cliffs to watch for, everything buried. That terrain was so swarmed yesterday that you had to dodge other skiers. I never thought I’d be describing Light Towers as a crowded run!!! Even though I only had 2 hours of sleep due to some flight delays and DST time change, I didn’t want to quit, the snow was that good.

@Alexzn - Agreed! Yesterday was one of the best days I had a Squaw this season, last season, and maybe even the one prior. Didn't get the early start that we usually get (damn you, Daylight Savings!), but maybe it worked out for the best, since when we got on the Funi at 9:30, there was no line at all. And that was the best part, there were no lines all day!!! Did a quick warm-up off Gold Coast and then went right to Sibo. No line - and the best part - no wind. At all. The wind socks were flat! Lapped that a few times and thought we would try Headwall. That had a huge line - and we were on a no-line day, so we skied to the bottom and took KT, again, no line. Lapped that a couple times until the line started and then took up Squaw One, since there was no wind. Did another lap on Sibo, but the visibility started to go, so we decided to head down to Red Dog. Did a couple laps there and Squaw Creek, and we couldn't believe how empty those lifts and trails were.

On top of the no-line, no-wind loveliness, the snow was fantastic. I was on my Laser AX's and skiing in the windbuff off Sibo, the ungroomed off KT, and the awesome groomers at Squaw Creek. The snow was soft, sometimes packed, and fast on the groomed stuff. So much fun out there.

Our friends headed over to Shirley and said the lines there were longer than normal on a Sunday, so I guess everyone went there and Headwall. From the lift, we could see the crowds lined up at the top of the Slot, looking like ants - and we could see how crowded it was over there.

The only bad part of the day was calling it quits around 12:30, since we had to get back to the Bay for a few things. But for the three hours we were out there, we had smiles on our faces and couldn't believe our fantastic day.
 

Eleeski

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Squaw today for the group's last day. Late start to pick up Dee's desperately needed new boots from Olympic Bootworks. My bump maniac buddy was coming up later so we rushed off for some easy groomers. But Emigrant was open so we went the hard way to Shirley. Soft steep and sweet with fun little bumps and some wind buff powder. We did that circuit again to hook up with our buddy.

He had some fancy new Bonafides and the same size boots as me. So a demo lap on Shirley gave me a taste of the Bonafides. Much better than the old Bonadides but still way too hard to turn and way too stable for my tastes.

Off to Headwall to find some bumps. Light Towers? I tried to follow my buddy but I didn't trust my knee with a 2 meter drop to firm snow. There was one other factor: I know you get GNAR points for peeing midline on a difficult line but there really needs to be a penalty for peeing at the top of a line. The pee stains left by earlier worried skiers at the entrance to the Light Towers did nothing for my confidence. I skied around to the old Cornice 2 chair entrance.

Classic chute was very fun with my speed in sync with the snowballs my skies sprayed up. I was a giant snowball at the bottom! Another Headwall lap down more reasonable Sun Bowl (nice) to Horse Trails (excellent!). Dee's new Langes were really working there. But it was lunchtime now. Off to Dave's.

After lunch it was West Face time. Soft snow, soft bumps. Repeat. A break to try Olympic Lady. More soft snow and soft bumps. Finished up with a Chute 75. More soft snow and soft bumps. Ice for the knee but what a great day.

Friends headed home happy but poorer - Ikon passes for next year, new boots and new skis. Skiing addiction!

Eric
 

Andy Mink

Everyone loves spring skiing but not in January
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Finally a glorious bluebird day at Mt. Rose. Chalky groomers with wind blown refills, soft bumps, and visibility. I took a few runs on the Rose side but retreated back to Slide so as not to get stuck if Northwest chair was put on wind hold.
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Heading up Mt. Rose highway

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The rime tells the tail of recent fog and wind

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The wind making itself known across the top

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So much snow the Slide side is losing definition between runs, especially towards the mid and bottom

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Looking across Slide side over Washoe Lake into Carson City

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More rime

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Tahoe finally shows itself

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Fun run
 

Alexzn

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way too stable for my tastes.
.
Huh??? I never thought of stable as a downside in a ski.

+1 on the entrance yellow stains. I must say that the top of Light Towers is a somewhat interesting place to do it, as it is in full frontal view of the chair, and I think you can see the back from Ho-Chi-Min traverse..
 

LuliTheYounger

I'm just here to bother my mom
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Beautiful day at Alpine! Did laps on Wolverine most of the morning; the groomer got a little icy in patches, but the bumps off to both sides were really nice. We got caught in a storm after lunch & got to lap some really nice shallow powder on Roundhouse by the end of the day.

Pictured: Florida Man surveying his kingdom. There was a blast boulder in his line, so he sat on it - sometimes the debris conquers Florida Man, but sometimes Florida Man conquers the debris.
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Eleeski

Making fresh tracks
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First, I must defend my taste in skis. A big old Cadillac limo is stable, my little Datsun Roadster responsive. I don't own a Cadillac limo (but my father in law did so I know how they drive) and I do own a Datsun 2000. Bones are stable, my Goodes are responsive.

Timing is everything. @Andy Mink timed it right. We didn't. The bright sunny morning looked stable so we cleaned the cabin and let tired muscles recover. A late after lunch start saw some clouds. By the time we had dragged the wagon to Far East it was snowing and blowing. Any thoughts of recreating yesterday's bump lines ended with the zero visibility and refreeze on the first run.

Shirley was at least soft but still skiing by braille. Despite a couple inches of nice fresh accumulating, we gave up.

Successfully beat any chain controls to get the chainless 2nd rental to the Reno airport. Now we have hours to kill before our flight.

Lots of great skiing. Fun trip!

Eric
 

Pumba

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Hey all. I’ll be back in ca next week and hoping to sneak away for a day or two in Tahoe. Anyone around either tues, weds, thurs, at squaw/alpine next week? Hope to meet up with people for some runs. Let me know.

K

P.s. not skiing and being back in the”real” world sucks!
 

luliski

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Hey all. I’ll be back in ca next week and hoping to sneak away for a day or two in Tahoe. Anyone around either tues, weds, thurs, at squaw/alpine next week? Hope to meet up with people for some runs. Let me know.

K

P.s. not skiing and being back in the”real” world sucks!
Yes! I'll be up Mon/Tues. would love to ski with you.
 

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