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There’s starting to be a theme, as this is my 8th day at Alpine Meadows this year, and if you count Homewood, it’s the 11th between the two. Probably a strong argument to get a season pass next year.

I was settled in to get some work done, and even managed to get all necessary meetings taken care of. Luckily most of the work isn’t pressing, so when Javier gave me a call on Wednesday about a freakish temperature drop down to 9 degrees and a subsequent 30″ dump of snow, the decision wasn’t too hard. Ideally I would have been able to make the drive that evening, but I was super tired, and was having dinner with Hank, so I braved the 4:30am wake up, and made the long haul in the morning. Traffic was surprisingly heavy on 89 towards Tahoe City, especially if you were going to be making the turn towards Squaw.

Things got a bit lighter at Alpine, but by no means was it a typical mid-week day – people were definitely out getting turns. Javier arrived before I did, and although I was doing what I could to get on the slopes as fast as possible, the world was conspiring against me. As I tightened up my left boot, the upper lace broke (again), pretty much putting me out of commission. Luckily I travel with duct tape, so I yanked it down and ran around the top a few times, actually managing to get things pretty tight. Too tight I found out later when my toes went numb, but nothing to be done about that.

We did a few laps on Summit Six before heading to Scott, then eventually to the backside. Notably, I completely bailed on the cliff off the chute skier’s right of D-8, but got some nice shots of Javier coming down, as you can see. Promised Land was pretty sick, and there were lots of drops and untracked powder to be had all day. All in all a rousing success.

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The day got off to a somewhat slow start since we were all fairly worked from the day before at Alpine, so there was some stretching, laptopping, and a trip to the Old Post Office before Jay and I managed to get our stuff together and put in a half day at Homewood. The weather was a balmy 45 degrees (otherwise known as hot), but there was still some fresh powder to be found in the trees, and in general everything was pretty soft.

Jay put in some time on the Quad chair, and I gave my likely useless suggestions on a few runs, and played around in the trees before trying to do a lap down Quail Face. I could have sworn it was open, but once I did the traverse the ropes and signs assured me that it most certainly was not. By the time I got back over to the other side, it was pretty much time to head back, which was just as well since my legs might not have been having much more.

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Weather forecasts showed some pretty intense precipitation coming in off the Pacific – an El Nino system from the south, which meant that temperatures could be on the warm side. We crossed our fingers, and Jay and I beat the storm by making the drive on Thursday, and then worked from home on Friday when it turned out to be rain, pretty much all day. The main excitement came from having some guys come by to check out the cornice hanging off our roof over the deck. Once it was determined to be a rather large hazard, he almost tried to jump out of a window onto the roof, which I’m pretty sure would have resulted in death. He thought better of it and they ended up going to get a ladder. It made a spectacular crash coming down.

Things turned over around 6 in the evening, and it was snowing pretty hard by the time most people arrived at the house. I heard from someone on a lift that their friends had left San Francisco at 6pm, and hadn’t arrived until 4am due to I-80 being closed near Colfax. We did what you do on a powder day, and everyone was in bed by 11:30.

We woke up to a report of 12″+ at Alpine, so we got over there and onto the mountain as close to 9 as we could. Andy and I went to do a few laps on Summit Six, and the visibility was some of the worst I’ve ever seen on Ward Peak. Literally 10ft, and the flattest light there can be. Andy ended up riding up the berm at above Wolverine Bowl, and I wouldn’t have seen it coming either if not for Andy’s bright ass new pants. We eventually rode down blind until it cleared, then opened it up on the powder. Andy had a nice line into a bomb crater, followed by two full somersaults, before riding out of it. More runs through Promised Land gave way to untracked powder late into the morning where we met up with Che and Roger, and by the time afternoon rolled around we were pretty spent. Sherwood runs and relaxing at the Ice Bar fit the bill, and we met up with Jay, who was also pretty exhausted.

We grabbed a few beers at the lodge, then headed back to the house for the hot tub, two more losses for Andy at spades, and then a deep sleep.

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Since I had just gotten back from Alaska, and there wasn’t much promise of snow, and there were things to be done in the city, Reagan and I didn’t head up to the house until Saturday. The forecast changed a bit, and it did snow, so we didn’t really even get in that early, and ended up driving in the dark, but it was still a good relaxed day. Unfortunately the snow sort of passed us by (though they got 2 feet just north of us), the following day proved to be similar, and we ended up just doing a half day at Homewood. We mostly stuck to the quad and blue runs, though Reagan did dip into the trees a few times, her first time ever. After we determined that all was going well, we did a run down White Lightning, though the snow really wasn’t good enough to justify it. As you can see in the video, it was soft enough to try and jump off of smaller stuff, but you can also see that due to melting, exposed rocks at the top made it nearly impossible to stick the landing.

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So for the first time, I didn’t take a single picture or video all day. Melanie C and I headed up not too early and managed to get in a half day at Northstar. The snow was pretty slushy, so ridiing off piste and in the trees didn’t really work out so much, but the groomers were pretty fast and fun. Not shocker that it was more work than it should have been considering the snow, but it was good to keep in shape and prepare for…. Alaska!

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A day at Alpine with Scott, Adam, Chico, Andy, Jay and Reagan.

Friday was tiring, but that didn’t stop us from getting back out on the mountain at Alpine on Saturday, with a bit of fresh to be had. Definitely some work to move through, and some firmer areas than you would like to see, but not much to complain about either. We moved around the whole mountain – Scott Chair to Promised Land, Roundhouse up to Yellow Chair, Sherwood on the backside and over Expert Shortcut (resulting in a near collision between Scott and I, seen above, which is what you get when someone who rides regular comes back to back with someone who rides goofy), but a lot of our time was spent in Beaver Bowl. To end out the day I decided to push on over to Estelle Bowl, but being the only boarder who had attempted it, as evidenced by the lack of footprints and the uphill traverse, I ended up going all the way to Bernie’s before being able to drop in. The reward for the 45 minute hike was worth it though, and I had fresh tracks in knee to waist deep snow the whole way down.

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I drove up to Tahoe super super late on Thursday night after dinner with Reagan, Deb and Kyle as Sushi Bistro. I actually even arrived late there, since I had to drive up to DemoSport in San Rafael first, and of course the traffic was horrendous with the rain. I didn’t even leave until 11:45, then had to plow through unplowed roads to drop of bindings for Dan in Tahoe Donner before heading to the house. I didn’t lay down until nearly 4am (after putting some laundry on), and yet still managed to get up at 9am, and out on the hill by 10. The call was for Alpine, since that’s where Andy, Javier, Adam, and Scott were riding, and it ended up being a really fun day. Dropped a decent number of small cliffs – it was the first time I really felt like things were getting covered completely.

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