tseeb
Well-known member
What a pair of powder days at Northstar! Wednesday was 9” new on top of 15” from previous day. Thursday was 15” more new with drier snow that skied well even where wind affected. We thought Wed. was a very good powder day, but Thurs. was the second day in a row that I got my best powder day of the year.
On Wed. we were on the gondola early enough to ski one warm-up low-angle untracked run on Vista chair before getting to mid-mountain lodge a couple of minutes after 9 am meet up time. We were by Zephyr Lodge in time for rope drop for Backside and skied powder down to the chair. We went up and once skied close to under the chair line, then three more runs to West of the Backside chair before going into Schaffer’s Camp, a private lodge near top of Zephyr chair for wedding between Phil and Trish who did most of the work to put together the EpicSki gathering at Tahoe this week. It was a long wait for a very short ceremony with many ski references in their vows. After the champagne toast and a quick meeting where it was decided that Montana would be next venue for the group, we went out into the still snowy and windy day. A sign to skiers left of the private lodge said open so we took that instead of the skied out run where we started our Backside. It joined the Islands which was deep and untracked, but not that steep and was wind affected. We went up Backside and did three runs to the East, working our way in from Promised Land. Again we were mostly in powder on the run edges or in trees. We had many excellent and deep 5-10 turns untracked shots and ended our Backside with untouched Why Not, a short steep face just before the chair.
We took the poma lift into Lookout and skied Sugar Pine Glades. There were some tracks, but a lot of space between them and snow was getting deeper. We were finding some hard objects under the snow, but they were mostly logs and ice, not rocks. We skied one run towards boundary to skiers left of Prossor. They was good snow, but we got a little low and afraid of flat exit so we took off skis for a couple of hundred feet to cross a wind-stripped area to get back to run. Tony Crocker stayed in trees to left of run while I alternated between trees and edge of run. Next run we dropped off the flat road to Prossor and found some steep and deep snow that continued far down the hill. We decided to do that again, except go a little more left at the top, but patrol had already roped off going to the right to sweep that side of Lookout. We quickly dropped off ridge on the other side between Boca and Martis run and found more good untracked on top, before moving towards Sugar Pine Glades. Instead of following groomed runs, where road crosses to old Lookout base, we followed a skier into untracked below the road. It was flat enough that you wanted somebody ahead of you to make sure there was an exit track. Being flat also meant gentler turns that worked well in the thin untracked snow we were skiing well after 3 PM. Tony skied towards the village while I missed turn to hard to find Home Run. I ended up skiing down to Ritz Carlton where I saw others walking above it to Home Run, where untracked could still be found on the edges. I got back to the car just before 4 pm, and then met rest of the group for excellent sushi that was nearly all you could eat. We had so much we thought they might ask for more than the $30 we paid.
Thursday was a lot the same except for:
1. Tony was driving to Utah so I skied with first one, then three snowboarding friends from Truckee.
2. Did not start until 9 as I got out of room in Reno at 7:45 instead of 7:30 when I wanted to and then stopped to fill up with cheap NV gas, before returning to more expensive CA. There was also some delay due to chain control so I did not arrive until 9.
3. Snow was deeper and drier and far more consistent, even though wind was still there. Best snow of the day may have been left side of Stampede, one of Northstar’s steepest where every turn sent up billowing clouds of snow.
4. Small crowds on Backside drove us to Lookout sooner. The line was only a couple of minutes, but if chair stopped as it did once for more than 5 minutes, line could build quickly. Even though there were a lot more skiers as it was getting closer to weekend, powder was not being skied out faster so they must have been sticking to groomers.
5. Over-confidence in amount of coverage led to two falls. The first was when I hit something in a turn with a lot of weight on ski. I spun and fell so hard on soft packed snow my water bottle popped out of my jacket. When I went to find it, I also found some branches almost sticking through the snow near where I fell that could have poked a hole in me. The second was not as close of a call as I hit objects under the snow on three turns in a row in steep powder. Since my hip was already sore I did not want it hurt it further trying to recover and laid over.
6. I quit skiing before 2:30 instead of close to 4 (but did not stop for wedding or lunch or anything else, other than to group and re-group). I drove to Char Burger place in King’s Beach where next customer and cashier talked about 1.5 hour line waiting for KT to open, and it sounded like it did not (until noon). First option was shuttle to Squaw Creek and ride that lift, which may have been only one open at Squaw due to wind. Then, many people shuttled or drove to Alpine, where they overwhelmed Roundhouse lift, as Summit (and probably Scott or anything else challenging) was not open.
Vertical on Wed 28K with 16K powder estimated by Tony Crocker. Thurs 26K/similar powder number. I tried to take it easy after noon on Thursday by skiing less challenging runs and staying with snowboarders. But I could not resist all the untracked on edge or in trees just off the runs and ended up with a lot of untracked powder turns on every run including Home Run returning to the car.
Friday, I am going to Heavenly, where they have not reported as much new snow, but all of NV and top third of CA has been closed due to wind so they should be some powder.
On Wed. we were on the gondola early enough to ski one warm-up low-angle untracked run on Vista chair before getting to mid-mountain lodge a couple of minutes after 9 am meet up time. We were by Zephyr Lodge in time for rope drop for Backside and skied powder down to the chair. We went up and once skied close to under the chair line, then three more runs to West of the Backside chair before going into Schaffer’s Camp, a private lodge near top of Zephyr chair for wedding between Phil and Trish who did most of the work to put together the EpicSki gathering at Tahoe this week. It was a long wait for a very short ceremony with many ski references in their vows. After the champagne toast and a quick meeting where it was decided that Montana would be next venue for the group, we went out into the still snowy and windy day. A sign to skiers left of the private lodge said open so we took that instead of the skied out run where we started our Backside. It joined the Islands which was deep and untracked, but not that steep and was wind affected. We went up Backside and did three runs to the East, working our way in from Promised Land. Again we were mostly in powder on the run edges or in trees. We had many excellent and deep 5-10 turns untracked shots and ended our Backside with untouched Why Not, a short steep face just before the chair.
We took the poma lift into Lookout and skied Sugar Pine Glades. There were some tracks, but a lot of space between them and snow was getting deeper. We were finding some hard objects under the snow, but they were mostly logs and ice, not rocks. We skied one run towards boundary to skiers left of Prossor. They was good snow, but we got a little low and afraid of flat exit so we took off skis for a couple of hundred feet to cross a wind-stripped area to get back to run. Tony Crocker stayed in trees to left of run while I alternated between trees and edge of run. Next run we dropped off the flat road to Prossor and found some steep and deep snow that continued far down the hill. We decided to do that again, except go a little more left at the top, but patrol had already roped off going to the right to sweep that side of Lookout. We quickly dropped off ridge on the other side between Boca and Martis run and found more good untracked on top, before moving towards Sugar Pine Glades. Instead of following groomed runs, where road crosses to old Lookout base, we followed a skier into untracked below the road. It was flat enough that you wanted somebody ahead of you to make sure there was an exit track. Being flat also meant gentler turns that worked well in the thin untracked snow we were skiing well after 3 PM. Tony skied towards the village while I missed turn to hard to find Home Run. I ended up skiing down to Ritz Carlton where I saw others walking above it to Home Run, where untracked could still be found on the edges. I got back to the car just before 4 pm, and then met rest of the group for excellent sushi that was nearly all you could eat. We had so much we thought they might ask for more than the $30 we paid.
Thursday was a lot the same except for:
1. Tony was driving to Utah so I skied with first one, then three snowboarding friends from Truckee.
2. Did not start until 9 as I got out of room in Reno at 7:45 instead of 7:30 when I wanted to and then stopped to fill up with cheap NV gas, before returning to more expensive CA. There was also some delay due to chain control so I did not arrive until 9.
3. Snow was deeper and drier and far more consistent, even though wind was still there. Best snow of the day may have been left side of Stampede, one of Northstar’s steepest where every turn sent up billowing clouds of snow.
4. Small crowds on Backside drove us to Lookout sooner. The line was only a couple of minutes, but if chair stopped as it did once for more than 5 minutes, line could build quickly. Even though there were a lot more skiers as it was getting closer to weekend, powder was not being skied out faster so they must have been sticking to groomers.
5. Over-confidence in amount of coverage led to two falls. The first was when I hit something in a turn with a lot of weight on ski. I spun and fell so hard on soft packed snow my water bottle popped out of my jacket. When I went to find it, I also found some branches almost sticking through the snow near where I fell that could have poked a hole in me. The second was not as close of a call as I hit objects under the snow on three turns in a row in steep powder. Since my hip was already sore I did not want it hurt it further trying to recover and laid over.
6. I quit skiing before 2:30 instead of close to 4 (but did not stop for wedding or lunch or anything else, other than to group and re-group). I drove to Char Burger place in King’s Beach where next customer and cashier talked about 1.5 hour line waiting for KT to open, and it sounded like it did not (until noon). First option was shuttle to Squaw Creek and ride that lift, which may have been only one open at Squaw due to wind. Then, many people shuttled or drove to Alpine, where they overwhelmed Roundhouse lift, as Summit (and probably Scott or anything else challenging) was not open.
Vertical on Wed 28K with 16K powder estimated by Tony Crocker. Thurs 26K/similar powder number. I tried to take it easy after noon on Thursday by skiing less challenging runs and staying with snowboarders. But I could not resist all the untracked on edge or in trees just off the runs and ended up with a lot of untracked powder turns on every run including Home Run returning to the car.
Friday, I am going to Heavenly, where they have not reported as much new snow, but all of NV and top third of CA has been closed due to wind so they should be some powder.
