North Lake Tahoe, CA 4/10-13/19

tseeb

Well-known member
Alpine 4/10/19
I didn’t leave San Jose until almost 7 and arrived Alpine about 11 and was on Roundhouse lift about 11:15. Groomers were in good condition even though there was a moderate wind out of the N. North-facing ungroomed was firm to very firm as there had been some precipitation when it was above freezing that had frozen solid overnight. I skied the Face early and it was firm, but not really icy. I met up with the head Pugs, Bob and Pat (mustski) and John (formerly mdskier) for a few runs. We went to Sherwood, Alpine’s S-facing via Scott chair and skiing Mountain View and Ray’s Rut. The lower angle S-facing Sherwood Face was almost too soft in place so I went to higher South Face on my 2nd lap. John and I returned to the front side via very firm High Yellow. While others were done for the day John and I skied a couple of laps on Lakeview where snow was soft, but still good and we found a little nearly corn on W-facing return to main base. I took a short break at car about 2 and moved it up to the front row. I did two laps on Summit before moving to the W-facing at Alpine (Scott’s) which was great late in the day, ~3 PM. Smooth, supportive and creamy corn.
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I quit about 3:30 with 20K.

This picture taken far skiers right of Scott Chute (where usually you'd be in rocks) shows an interesting rock formation at upper right, Squaw Peak and Sun Bowl at top center and a couple of skiers at lower left.
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Squaw 4/11/19
This was the toughest of my 4 days as it took until the afternoon for non-groomers to soften and visibility was marginal most of the day. I met Laine, Bob and Pat from pugski at Dave’s Deli about 9, but we did not get up Funitel until about 9:30. We skied a couple of warm-up laps on SE facing groomers on Gold Coast where we were joined by my friend Lenny, who splits his winters between Indiana, PA and Truckee. He telemarks and had late SLC-RNO flight after skiing powder at Brighton the previous day.

We moved to Granite Chief where the two groomers, Main Backside and High Voltage both skied well. We were joined by John, who had the right idea of not being too early as it remained firm off the groomers in the AM. Since it was open and most of us had never skied it, we did Oregon Trail to Silverado. It is generally only open in the Spring and this was not a good day for it as we missed turn to the groomer on the top part of it and had to get down a steep and firm face, then cross a wide gully before getting to groomed track that was OK. I braved an short SE-facing slope near the bottom, but it was too firm.

From the top of Silverado, we skied Mountain Run to KT where we skied the Saddle. The access road across the top was firm with poor visibility, but the groomed was OK. We went in for a break then went out and skied Red Dog, then Squaw Creek. Snow was softer than in the morning and we even did a little off-groomer in lower middle of Squaw Creek that was OK. Everyone else quit after Dogleg return to Squaw base while John and I did a couple of Saddle laps on KT where I led us off groomed in a couple of spots and found it OK. Since visibility improved, we ended our day by riding Headwall. We skied S-facing Sun Bowl, but found it too firm. We liked N-facing Bullet lower on mountain better. I quit at 3 PM with almost 21K.

Northstar 4/12/19 (added some White Rabbit pictures via edit)
Northstar was very good, even my last run (before Home Run that got me about a 1/2 mile from my car) in trees next to Dropoff then cutting across to the steep pitch on Surprise at almost 3. They are suffering from lack of employees which has closed Arrow chair (Vista gets you higher although some of it may be challenging for beginners) and also probably closed Lookout Link which mean a long, mostly unexciting road from top of mountain to Lookout base with a couple of slightly sticky spots. Generally though the snow held up well as even though it was very sunny, temp started low and rose slowly.

We probably should have moved to Lookout earlier as my snowboarding friend Don and his friend Doug said groomed Prossor was excellent. Lenny and I skied all of Stampede, Northstar’s steepest run, and found some very good snow with 1” or so of untracked along edge, but some of it could have used a little more softening. We had seen gate open for White Rabbit, which drops from Lookout to Backside base and didn’t want to see it close on us. It was my first time out that gate in years and first time ever that it was not for a powder run. The three of us on skis had a great W-facing corn run and worked our way to left (to more S-facing, but mostly in shade of trees) to avoid rope-line that can require hike back to lift.
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I got sprayed taking the last picture. Over 30K - EpicMix said 32K, but I think it counted an extra Backside lap while I was there a while waiting for Don who was having trouble hearing meeting plan over his Bluetooth.

Squaw 4/13/19
Sunny day that started warmer than previous day and also warmed faster. I planned to quit before 1, but stayed at Squaw an hour longer than planned and did not get on road home until almost two. I had five laps on Headwall, starting with an early and groomed Sun Bowl, and five laps on Silverado, where I did the steep wall below gate 2 three times (probably Bailey's Cirque), getting a little further skier's right each time. Lenny joined me for my second and third time out gate 2 and then we caught up with @at_nyc on our only time down Landbridge where we stopped to watch a competition that including an uphill race and a free-ride event. There was also a bump competition near the bottom of Headwall. We rode Headwall and Lenny and I skied The Slot, where entrance is as good as I’ve ever seen it although you had to take off skis for about 50 feet on the way there, then I got into Classic chute. I finished with a KT lap where we skied Women's Downhill, some of it could have been a little softer or smoother. 22.8K
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Was surprised how steep this was. Went down lookers right the first time where it was not quite as steep and was catching more sun and went further left next two times. There are a lot of places where snow is pulling away from rocks as in center and lower right of this picture taken from Silverado chair. Tram is slowing to dock at top, left of center.
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