Squaw Valley, CA 1/23/2020

tseeb

Well-known member
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I met friends who had driven up from San Jose near Far East lift about 9:40. They were able to buy two for $169 ($179 weekend) tickets using coupon from Warren Miller movie. I took one lap while they geared up and probably should have taken two. We went up Far East and skied to Red Dog lift which we rode to get to Squaw Creek where we skied both Village View and Nob Hill.
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We were the first to do the hike to Sully Knob and the unskied, groomed face had not frozen and skied very well.
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I thought about taking friends up Funitel to get to top, but they said they were up for KT Saddle to Headwall, then Chicken Bowl into Siberia. It turned out to be a mistake.

I pointed my friends down the groomed, but steep blue or moderate black depending on firmness, Saddle. But they followed me down a steep chute that had less coverage than I expected and required navigating around a few rocks and rock bands. When I re-joined the groomer, I expected them to come around the corner, but instead saw them at top of 100’ tall steep rocky face. One of them removed his skis and slid down, leaving skis and poles near the top of the face. I had tried to wave other friend away from rock band, but he turned right into it and probably needed to go that way to retrieve first friend’s gear. Then to be able to retrieve gear, he removed his skis on a slope too firm and steep to put them back on and threw all the gear down the hill. He slid down the steep part, but picked up too much speed and did not know to dig in toes to self-arrest and was lucky slope flattened so he stopped. There was no damage besides one brake on first guy to remove skis had bent and ski would not stay on and when they tried to straighten it, eventually broke. They were able to get it replaced, but somewhere in their travels left his goggles and had to go back the next day to look through lost and found. In retrospect, I should have made sure they were past me on the groomer before I went down the steep off-piste alternate. Both of them did not realize they were leaving groomer due to flat light and not the most appropriate goggles/glasses,

I met another friend from where we all have retired (or will have by end of next week) at base of Gold Coast lift at noon. He has a place near where I-80 leaves Truckee at base of Donner Summit and snowboards when soft and was on skis this day. We rode and skied Gold Coast once and the Face of Siberia a couple of times before moving to Emigrant where Face was not a good as expected. We skied excellent groomers on Shirley a couple of times, eventually running into other friends. They wanted to ski Granite Chief so we moved there where we all skied unexpectedly busy Main Backside. They all expected to Shirley while I did another Granite lap skiing groomed High Voltage that was much smoother and less crowded than previous run. I also returned to Squaw Creel and repeated hike to Sully's Knob and repeated Nob Hill before having a beer on long slow chair.
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I quit after 3:30 with over 25K. We all went to Cornice Cantina we I had a $8 50-50 CAPA followed by a $1 PBR shifter (only allowed one per day, but PBRs were only $2 on Thurs
 
Nice report Tony.
I love the Sierra Nevada Hazy. We can even get it over here.
I'm very much looking forward to sampling the craft (I think you call them micro) brews when I'm on your side of the Pacific next month.
 
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