Heavenly Valley, 1/6/05

Tony Crocker

Administrator
Staff member
I drove from L.A. to South Tahoe in 7 1/2 hours Wednesday with no storm yet and just occasional snow on the road from Mammoth to Bridgeport. FYI Bridgeport has an interesting microclimate; it was -6F when I drove through, compared to +5F at Mammoth and about +20F at Tahoe.

With the storm not due for another day I dressed moderately, but it was 10-15 degrees at Heavenly in the morning with fog and light winds, and I cleverly dropped a glove shortly after getting on Sky Chair for the first time. I skied down and recovered the glove but never got comfortable all day. I tried to warm up by going down to the bottom and skiing moguls in East Bowl/Gunbarrel. The New Year's storm dropped 4-5 feet of snow here, and it was packed powder even at the usually springlike bottom of Gunbarrel.

With the new and convenient gondola access from the casino area Heavenly is probably getting even more traffic, so the fresh powder was thoroughly tracked out in most of the Nevada tree areas I used to frequent back in the 1980's. I did get a few leftovers in Killebrew Canyon, which doesn't get many people due to a somewhat tedious traverse back to the Mott Chair.

The afternoon saw some clearing but also a bit more wind. I skied with a former ski buddy George Tang and his 12-year-old son Andrew in the Dipper, Mott and Stagecoach areas. George has lived in Taiwan for the last 2 1/2 years and in the East for a decade before that. I quit about 3:30 as it was getting colder and I wanted to save energy for the predicted huge dump over the weekend.
 
Belated pics from always photogenic Heavenly Valley.

Mott trees:
mott_trees.JPG


My friend George Tang and son Andrew:

george_andrew.JPG


This was probably my first time in Killebrew Canyon.

killebrew_dn.JPG



Looking back up Killebrew:

killebrew_up.JPG


Gunbarrel:
gunbarrel.JPG
 
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