Yesterday Friday February 22, 2019 was the first truly sunny clear low breeze day about Tahoe in a few weeks. Thursday I'd driven up by noon then skied Kirkwood with temperatures a cold 16F all afternoon plus was often snowing and windy at ridgelines. At sunrise the temperature at my Stateline motel was a frigid -3F so had no interest in getting outside for my half mile walk to the Heavenly gondola until about 10am when the temperature had moderated to the high teens. At 9am I'd checked a weatherunderground web site up on the Kingsbury Grade showing the temp at 12F.
Arriving at the top of the gondola at 9136 feet at the Tamarack Lodge could see all the whitebark and lodgepole pines above on ridgelines were about as spectacular rimed and powder loaded as they ever get below an extra deep blue sky. Thus was intent to get a few good shots with my Canon Powershot ELPH 900, a tiny 4.7 ounce point and shoot.
After reaching the top of Comstock Express, skied down Orion and then up Comet Express so I could reach the 49er trail where I expected to find the best ridge subjects and indeed the visual was spectacular. Image at top is a 4 stitch panorama blend. (mouse click image to enlarge) This image just above was just a short ways below the top of 49er.
This next image above show The chicken and Big Bird.
And then a bit lower noticed this windswept tree so moved to an optimal spot to isolate just the branches against the sky.
Of course a zoom a zoom was required too. Note the camera can do 10x optical and has image stabilization.
Ok from then on was just looping up Comet Express and down Little Dipper bumps for the next 3 hours. Lots of long relaxed direct fall line 2 and 3 stoppers locked into the zone.
In the afternoon about 3pm on my way back down the mountain, went back to 49er and shot the same tree again in pm light per above.
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