White Rabbit

James, the head coach of our snowboard team, decided that he needed an admin day to get some emails and office work done, so he asked me to coach today.

I showed up at 10 to 9 and met just one of our athletes.
It was a snow day, so the Truckee/Tahoe Unified Schools were out.
The athletes we normally coach on weekdays didn't show, so I got to work with just Griffin. Griffin is a 6'2" 16 year old shredder, and he pretty much kills it.
I could go into what kind of coaching Griff needs, but that would be off-topic.
It's enough to say that Griff rides powder pretty fast and loves to charge everything as fast as possible.

So Griff and I headed out and got on Zephyr, heading straight to Cookie Cliff, which was awesome. We rode down to the bottom of Backside, headed back up, and had to amazing Promised Land runs.
Next we decided to head to LookOut Mountain, and after a short run, a short Poma Lift ride, and a short traverse, we dropped into the Doctors' Office.
It was pretty off the hook. Big rocks completely covered in blower pow turned into great jumps, and we both got way more air than anticipated.

So we arrive at the bottom of Lookout, and the chair is stopped. We jump in line, close to the front, and see a bunch of race coaches, Ryan and his private lesson, and Paige, our program Administrator. I probably should have figured that someone knew something I didn't.
As we're standing in line killing time, I get a phone call from James, the head coach. I answer it, of course, and he tells me he just received an email telling him that White Rabbit is going to open in 15 minutes.

A little inside info: White Rabbit is about 1/3 of Lookout Mountain, the third that faces the backside and has the fewest trees on it. It is also the most consistently steep terrain at Northstar. The downside is that it is 95% rocks, and rarely gets enough snow to cover them. Last season it didn't open, as far as I know, and from what I understand rarely opens more than a few days a season.

So I let Ryan in on the secret once we load the chair, and we all head straight to the gate. Right behind us is Ski Patrol, and after waiting for about 3 minutes, we strap in and follo about 8 others through the gate.
We took the center section for the first run, and after a long traverse out involving some hard skating, we got back on the backside chair, rode to the top, strapped in, and b lined it back to the Lookout Link Poma.
Another short traverse and a top speed, no turns run down Martis deposited us back at the lift, where we rushed on and headed straight back to White Rabbit.
This time we headed far right. We got pretty deep back behind a ridge and almost got sucked into a gully that would have resulted in a long hike out.
We made the traverse and headed back to the same line for the next run.
The windlips and roller on WR were amazing! We found ourselves launching 30 to 40 feet and more without even trying and landing in soft, pillowy pow every time.
It was pretty incredible.

I forgot to mention that it was bluebird for every one of the runs we made, and cold, with almost no wind.
Anyone who says Northstar isn't sick needs to spend more time away from Vista.

Tomorrow we're hiking SawTooth Ridge all morning, maybe building a kicker, and having a picnic.
I love my job!

Blower

Epic Winter Storm hits the Sierras, depositing 4 feet of snow in 5 days.
Many resorts are forced to close at least half of their lifts due to avalanche danger and high winds.
Many services are disrupted by the weather, and remain so for days on end as the snow just keeps coming.

I lost my internet for 4 days thanks to 37" of snow disconnecting a cable on the tower in front of my house, and it didn't bug me too much.
Just kept riding (swimming) all this amazing snow!

I know the title implies epic light dry snow conditions, and that's a bit of a stretch for Tahoe, even in the best of times.
We definitely got some great snow, but we also got a bunch of that awesome, wet, heavy crud we like to call Sierra Cement that solidifies our base and guarantees fewer core shots and fewer injuries on these amazing ungroomed pow days.

We're pretty grateful.
We had some friends in town from Mt Baker over the last 3 days, and they had a great time! The conditions reminded them a lot of home. It's just too bad nothing here is as steep as the blue runs at Baker. Even Squaw couldn't offer a suitable substitute for what passes for teaching terrain in the shadow of Shuksan. But they had a great time, and we were happy to play host!

Also, over the past few days, we received our shipment of Bataleon Demo Boards, and are excited to get the team on them. Hopefully we can convince some kids, parents, and shred heads to drop some dough and start riding the best not-flat boards ever conceived. If you, or anyone you shred with, is interested in trying one out, drop me a line, we'll see what we can do.

Enjoy the snow, don't get stuck, drive carefully, see you tomorrow!