This shot was taken of Round Top and the Crescent Couloir after two inches+ of fresh fell around Tahoe last Tuesday into Wednesday. While it would be tough to claim Wednesday as a full-on pow day, these measly couple of inches actually smoothed and buffed out a lot of higher elevation terrain and made for some high quality summer snow sliding.
If you’re planning to head out for a hike this weekend be careful of wind loading and isolated pockets of instability on…just kidding. It’s summer! Of course you can never just turn your brain off when you venture into the backcountry looking to ski, but if you’re looking to earn some turns people have still been leaving tracks all over the Basin as there’s a bunch of snow lingering around at the higher elevations.
In the past week I’ve talked with friends who’ve skied off Rose, Donner, Alpine Meadows, and Luther Pass. They all came away with good reports, taking into account it’s summer and all. Since the disturbance that came through earlier in the week was focussed on Carson, Ebbett’s, and Sonora Passes I drove down to give Carson Pass a check and, again, while it was no pow day, the few inches of fresh we skied off Red Lake Peak were easy access, a great pitch, perfectly smooth, and fully worthy for a few summer turns.
If you feel like going for a walk to ski, maybe to warm yourself up for slaying Squaw this weekend, my choice would be to head high on Rose, or cruise south to Carson Pass. Check out the coverage from Round Top to the Sisters. Someone has to ski the Crescent this weekend!
Elephant’s Back was also looking sweet from the east face run we were skiing on Red Lake Peak.
These shots are from our smooth ski down Red Lake. In this shot you can see white caked all over Ebbett’s Pass to the south. However, a few friends were skiing out there last weekend and reported major sun cupping, so be warned if you’re thinking about heading out that way.
Even though it only snowed a few inches, these two shots show how smoothed out the snow got from this brief storm system passing through.
If you want to get deep Desolation is still holding tons of snow. Or you could even go for the super slog to ski Job’s Sisters’ North Face, and then fish for brown trout in Star Lake, which is at the bottom of the snow apron seen in this shot.
Normally, this is the time of year I love heading up to the aptly named 4th of July Bowl in Blackwood Canyon for a few turns. However, I just got off the phone with a USFS Ranger who told me flat out the road is closed and there’s no projected opening. She was not very stoked with my enthusiasm for skiing up there this weekend.
Nonetheless, the snow was ridiculously smooth after those few inches this past week so have fun if you get out there, kill it at Squaw, and make sure you get a BN line in if you do go for a hike since it’s summer and all. I actually think you loose GNAR point for NOT skiing naked this weekend. Happy 4th Tahoe!