Skiing Ayone???

[DDDDave]

Got back from SLT(South Lake Tahoe) a couple of weeks ago and need to post these photos to keep the stoke going.....








"Thank you and I hope we passed the audution"

[ironchef82]

Wow... amazing pics, I really like the third one. I'll have to put Lake Tahoe on my "places to go before I die" list now.

What resort is this at? I've been up to Mammoth Mountain before, and that rocked.

[powerclown]

Drooool.....

Around here, ski slopes are not mountains; ski slopes are garbage dumps.
*sob*

[Ace_O_Spades]

reminds me of lake louise kinda

[runawayfetus]

ahh i love lake tahoe. i used to live there. my whole family is there and im kinda pissed i havent been back to visit in a while. Nice pics!

[DDDDave]

Chef,

That's why they call it 'Heavenly Valley'

[Mondak]

That is killer! Tahoe is gorgeous and that first picture is awesome with the lake in the background. I love to ski more than anything in the whole world. In my opinion, Mammoth Mountain California is the best skiing in the United States. Great Snow, the best terrain, great lift service and unreal weather. I love it there. This is me on my favorite run, Climax!

[castex]

Tahoe!
Fabulous!
Snow so soft and fluffy that crashing is always a pleasure.
The lake - the feeling you could dive right in from the top with a well-timed jump. On the other side...Desert, cacti - so exotic to a skiier used to the rocks and trees of the Alps.
Lift queues are so polite, so orderly; "It's your turn now, Sir", says the copper Nobody carving chunks out of my beautiful skis in their desperation to get back up.
Those double-black diamonds...'The Axe Murderer', 'Rabid Grizzly Man Eater', 'Big, big Trouble', 'Call the Chopper!'

All fantastic fun, and I want to go back right this minute! Cheers DDDDave

[DDDDave]

Castex,

Yeah, some great names. That super steep in the second photo
is 'The Widowmaker'.

Lucky for me (and the kids) it wasn't this time.

[Tirian]

Originally posted by Ace_O_Spades
reminds me of lake louise kinda

I went boarding at Louise sunday this weekend!

had a good time, but they could use more snow right now.

[castex]

How long did it take you to get down, DDDDave?
I remember the Widowmaker well, it was ace!
It's not about bragging rights, but do you tackle that sort of gradient in seconds, or are you a 'break out the picnic every 20ft' sort of skiier?

I'm very much hoping to return to Chamonix next week. Last year I did the Pas de Chevre with a guide for the first time. It's a crazy couloir run from the top of the Grands Montets into the Vallée Blanche...I nearly died twice, but only because there wasn't enough snow to cover the brush lower down. The guide took the precaution of tying me up and anchoring himself before I picked my way inexpertly down. I slipped, he hung on. Saved my life. Twice.
Anyway, next week...

[DDDDave]

Probably somewhere between those two

It's always the first couple of turns that get you, it's all downhill after that!! (Ouch, that was bad)

Haven't had a chance to ski in Cham. It is one of my goals.

Cheers. Have fun.

[usualsuspect]

Man, I have to get off of the east coast! Looks good! Awesome pics!

[kpxrob]

those are some nice pics. im a snowboarder myself, just went yesterday. good to see that you had fun

[DDDDave]

Just a couple more pics.

This is actually a photo of Lake Tahoe covered in clouds on a 'bluebird' day.


This is the Nevada desert, which is the view to the east.


Just a nice powder stash.

[Mondak]

Sweet! Those recent? I know Mammoth has been getting DUMPED!

[skier]

Ahhh you're making me all itchy for skiing!!!

That's it. I'm going to lake louise this weekend.

[sherpahigh]

Nice to see some other skiers here. Can't get enough of it myself.

I was up at Sunshine a week ago and it was alright. Like others have said about Louise here, they could use some more snow. Love the pictures of Heavenly, I was there quite a few years ago and it was great fun. I have a few pictures from this year but nowhere to host them and most are on snowy days which make for great skiing but not so great pictures.

[bellzboy]

I been to some shitty hills in southern Wisconsin, but I'm gonna be at Winter Park, in Colorado, in a few weeks. That oughta be fun, I'm sure I'll be busted up when I get back.

[castex]

We went to Meribel in the end; the posh, English-speaking part of the 3 Vallées mega-resort. I know the area well, having been on various university trips thereabouts: it's hardly the last word in vertical madness, but there are some dear little runs. We booked last minute - the day before - into a chalet for 16. We were the only 2 there for three days, and were being looked-after by 3 chalet kids who seemed to delight in continuing to bake daily cakes for a full chalet...Yum. Four course meals every night; it was ace.
On the evening we arrived it was raining. It continued to rain and rain, and was pouring as we went to bed.
The next morning everything was covered in the softest, lightest, fluffiest snow you've ever seen. It was also still snowing. Hard. What an absolute thrill! If Meribel is not particularly challenging, what it does have in its favour is acres and acres of easy off-piste skiing. My wife was brave enough to follow me everywhere, and we were treated to a day of quite sublime sport.
Conditions remained excellent throughout the week. We stayed off-piste; everyone else (basically all of Paris) stayed on, and out of our way. If it wasn't snowing, the sun was beating down, taking the edge off temperatures reaching below -20°c. I'm back; I wish I wasn't.
I'll post some pictures, would like to post short videos but I've no idea how I'd do that. Any ideas?

[DDDDave]

I figured I would just keep this thread going instead of starting a new one.



So, anybody been out tearing it up this season ?????

Me,,, not yet. (I am in Florida after all.) Got my condo reserved in Tahoe for 1/8 - 1/15. Starting to feel the stoke.

We did Kirkwood and Heavenly last year but we are definitely going to hit the north shore this year. Squaw, Alpine Meadows, Sugar Bowl probably. There is a powdercat operation that we tried to hook up with last year in Tahoe City but couldn't seem to make it work. We really want to try it. I did a cat skiing trip at Steamboat years ago and had a blast.

Trip reports and pictures please.

[DDDDave]

Woooohoooo.....


HEADLINE: 60 in. of New Snow at Heavenly

Here are the current snow conditions as of 6am this morning, for Friday,
December 31, 2004.

The "winter storm of the decade" has 2004 going out in like
a lion. In the past 24 hours Heavenly has been pummeled
with FIVE TO SIX FEET of snow! The coditions are
phenomenal; the powder is light, dry, and waist deep. This
is one amazing storm that has provided us with quite
possibly the best powder skiing we've seen in a decade.

Heavenly (www.skiheavenly.com)
Temp. at 6am PST: 20F/-7C
Surface Conditions: Powder
Snowfall in last 24 hours: 60in.
Snowfall in last 7 days: 84in.
Mid-Mountain Base: 24in.
Percent of Terrain Open: 45%

We still have a winter storm advisory in affect for most of
today. If you're looking to get out and ski in the best
powder we've seen in a long time, then head over to the
California Lodge. All access to the mountain at this time
is through the Cal Lodge. We're looking to have skiing and
riding from Powderbowl Express down and quite possibly from
Canyon Express down. We have a ton of terrain open on the
CA side including some of the best tree skiing.


Ahhhh.....I can't wait. I hope the resort is at least dug out by the eighth.

[he_haha]

Wow that is amazing, like nothing on the east coast.

[StanT]

Here's a picture of East Wall at Arapaho Basin. The arrow point to a run called second notch. The run goes off to the right and is somewhat hidden in the picture.




Here's a picture of me climbing down into the run.



And a picture of the run itself, the pictures don't do justice to how steep this really is.

[drakers]

Wow, great photos, I miss skiing. It is so fun going through powder and just going straight down a mountain.

[kurty[B]]

Awesome Stan! I'll be hitting Copper and Winter Park this weekend.

[omnivest]

Good stuff. There's snow in the forecast today here in Telluride.

[sherpahigh]

So how was the tahoe trip this year Dave?

I've been getting a few great days up here in Alberta and BC. Just this weekend I was up at Sunshine skiing the 2 feet of fresh snow they got on friday. Best conditions I've ever seen there. Knee to waist deep untracked snow all morning with face shots galore.

It was so good to get a huge dump like that in Banff. Can't wait for more!! I've got a few pictures I haven't uploaded yet but I'll try and get some on here a bit later. Most aren't that great as I just snapped them quick to get back to skiing the great snow.

[DDDDave]

Well, I'm updating this thread again.

Since most of the resorts have now closed for the season, I am finally able to admit that I won't be making it back out to the slopes this year. I wanted to so bad.

Tahoe was so awesome this year it was incredible. It wasn't just me but most of the locals and snowdogs are calling it 'epic'. The day we arrived in Reno it snowed 3 feet in Reno. My brother-in-laws plane from Boston/Denver was the last one in. We drove south through white-out conditions to catch 50 through the pass. As we passed 5 or 6 cars buried in the snow on the side of the road, I knew why I reserved a 4wd ahead of time. After we got to Tahoe, we heard 15 minutes later on the radio that they had just closed 50.

It snowed 3 feet at our condo that night and 2 feet while we skiied Heavenly the next day. We had big designs on driving to the North Shore area for maybe a snowcat trip but we could barely even get to town from our condo at 8,000'.

We were not even able to get to our favorite area, Kirkwood, until Wednesday. The road to Kirkwood was closed due to avalanches for three days. If you were stuck at the resort, you truly had the place to yourself. We did finally get there, along with the entire Bay Area, on Wed. and it was perfect. See pics.

All in all, a fantastic trip. It snowed a total of 9 feet during the week we were there. Kirkwood's season total was 800" (that's 66+ feet !!!!)

Anyway, here are the pics...........




The first day when this was about the only picture we copuld get through all the snow (note the shit-eating grins.......)





The snow on the access road outside the condo......




The view from the top of chair 6 at Kirkwood. (Go to the source photo for a closer look. It is really incredible. )





On our way up to ride 'The Wave' at Kirkwood and all it's black diamond goodness.....






I was listening to a ska version of 'Walkin' on Sunshine' on the mp3 player during this lift ride to the top............I can close my eyes and hear it again.............'and it's startin' to feel good'....









And after we ski our legs off and they have to lick us off the lifts we get to the bottom and get this one last parting shot.....







Note: The first quote in my sig is what I tell myself as look over the edge before jumping into some of those lines......

[DDDDave]

Ok, two more photos from my later trip to Killington, VT.

It's 85 here today so time to say good bye to the snow photos and get psyched for the dive trip to Little Cayman in July.



Top of the Mountain.........Killington Access Road.......New Hampshire in the distance.



One last snow grin from the 'Superstar' chair in Killington.....

[Mondak]

Hey - feel free to come out to Mammoth for a fix now that you are out of snow. We will ski to July 4th for sure and have the snow to ski until August if they had enough people to run the lifts. They have almost 600 inches of fallen snow on the season. Think about how much that is for a second. Stuff is skiiable right now that almost never is.

http://www.mammothmountain.com/