“No one drives 400 miles through the middle of the night to make fresh tracks on Mt. Ordinary. Welcome to the Extraordinary. “ – www.squaw.com

More like, welcome to the Extra – Ordinary.

Being injured stinks. Being injured on a three-day weekend, not being able to ski, and being forced to people watch, not so bad. While doing so this past weekend in the village of the self proclaimed “Mt. Extraordinary,” I witnessed what I would call an “Epic Failure.”

Saturday morning, the first day of the 3^rd busiest skier traffic holiday for every resort in the North America, Squaw Valley’s new marketing and promotion was put to the test. And boy was it interesting. With “Unofficially” close to 10,000 skiers descending upon the Olympic Valley this past weekend, the customer service seemed to be nearly nonexistent.

What I witnessed was lines like I’ve never seen before. Talking with guests who were still 25 people deep from the ticket window, the frustration was apparent.

“I’ve been standing in this line for well over an hour, and not one person seems to know what the hell is going on?”

Apparently Squaw Valleys Operations Managers were not prepared to accommodate the influx of people anxious to take advantage Squaw Valleys latest ticket promotions. While lines extended through the village creating a maze of frustrated and angry customers, I had to sit back and ask myself a few questions.

1)   How, with a brand new “state of the art” ticketing center, does Squaw have only 4 ticket windows open?

2)   Why aren’t there informed customer service employees out here able to direct questions and people to the appropriate locations for rentals, tickets, etc? And by informed I don’t mean ski patrollers and lift maintenance employees handing out free coffee and hot cocoa vouchers.

3)   How, with all the fancy degrees, high paid executives and endless resources available from KSL, is Squaw not  prepared for this media/promotion frenzy they have created?

4)   Who the hell would stand in line for well over an hour to spend nearly $100 to buy a product that is at best, lack luster?

5)   Will those who actually did, really come back in the future after such a shitty experience?

The list goes on, but I think you get the point. As a person who lives and works in Tahoe year round, “we” depend on these customers for survival. Will they be back?

I do applaud Squaw on getting as much terrain open this past weekend as physically possible. I see that Headwall is finally spinning and I hear nearly everything that has at least 1’ of snow was open. However, Squaw needs to wake the hell up and step into the party. All the marketing and BS tag lines you put all over your new fancy website and Facebook posts don’t mean a damn thing if you cant execute the basic principles of business. Creating the experience, CAPTURING the $$, and leaving guests with the desire to return and spend their hard earned dollar. For every one good experience a customer has, they may be inclined to tell one or two people. For every one bad experience a customer has, they are inclined to tell at least ten people. That’s the first rule in Customer Service Squaw.

Figure it Out Squaw!!

Josh Anderson airs a rock pile off Art's Knob at Alpine Meadows

The Line of the Week
Alpine Meadows, California

Rocky & Bony – Let’s Air It

You can look at a pile of rocks, a scree field or a cliff in the summer only to be skiing straight over it on fresh pow later that winter. When looking at a ski line in summer it can be perplexing how winter could unleash enough snow to make it skiable. Then you take winter 2012… As the author of the Line of the Week I realized that it was time to get creative.

I have been asking around a lot lately to see who is down to get after it. It has been a touch difficult to find takers as the snow is just not that deep. People seem to being skiing a bit reserved (smart). Luckily for the “Line of the Week” some people need the rush. Skiing groomers and low angle pow are just not enough for everybody.

A call came in and I met up with Squaw ripper’s Josh Anderson and Ben Paciotti at Alpine the other day. The talk was building a kicker and shooting a bit. That plan was quickly axed as the conditions were not right. We skied a couple laps. After taking out a cute couple getting off Summit Chair ( I went right they went left) we headed toward Keyhole. The clouds had just moved in and Josh mentioned a fun line he’d been skiing off Art’s Knob.

At the top of the Knob I was quickly reminded how different the mountain looked this year. Art’s Knob was a jumble of rocks. As I peered over the edge I wondered how Josh even decided to ski it. I worked my way around to set up a shot. Ben dropped in first and skied a billy-goat line into a straight-line down the Knob. He had showed me the line Josh intended to ski which was a straight-line from the top, through the rocks and off a small lip clearing 20+ feet of horizontal rocks and choss below.

Ben Paciotti navigates through the rocks at Alpine Meadows before the air.

Before Josh dropped in I noticed a couple rocks protruding in the landing. I yelled up to him to let him know. His response was something like, “Not concerned, I’m landing way past that“. The clouds were flying past as he dropped in. I was below the top straight-line so all I could do was listen. I could hear a rumble get louder and louder and then a “wzshhhhh“.  I snapped a frame and then watched Josh rip like a bullet over my head. He stuck the landing and we went and grabbed a beer.

“It’s been a long, painful winter in Tahoe, punctuated with the loss of some pretty amazing and influential people in the ski world. I personally took myself out for pretty much all of January, and the consolation that “You’re not missing much” wasn’t really that consoling. So when some thin but pretty damn awesome pow showed up last week, there was a little pent up energy flowing around Squaw. Just ask Govy; that **** was crazy. I personally just saw this nice floater on Art’s Knob at Alpine, and on seeing Mr. Salm getting off of Summit, went and got a little excited and made it happen. It felt good.” – Josh Anderson

To view more of Ryan Salm’s Photography, check out:
http://ryansalmphotography.photoshelter.com/gallery/

The Line of the Week is a weekly photo piece by Ryan Salm featuring some of Tahoe’s finest athletes doing whatever we deem rad. We will be using the term “Line” loosely to describe anything resembling chutes, big airs, pointers or any general madness. All images are the property and copyright of Ryan Salm Photography. All images are only to be used in conjunction with the Line of the Week. Any other usage must be cleared in writing by Ryan Salm.

The cold snow showery pattern from the weekend is coming to an end after dropping some light dustings.  The frustrating dismal Winter pattern continues as we watch our neighbors to the North in the Cascades continue to get dumped on.

It is going to get mild this week with temperatures possibly breaking 50 at lake level Wednesday-Friday and 40′s on the mountains.  The snow is going to be nice and soft all week with maybe a little corn snow cycle.

We will be seeing a pattern shift in the Pacific by the weekend with the ridge moving North towards the Gulf of Alaska. A cold trough will be dropping down the West Coast next weekend which will drop our temperatures back into the 20′s and 30′s by Sunday. We could see some light snow with the cold front pushing through.

What looks certain for next week is that we will be in a different and colder pattern.  What is also starting to look likely is that the ridge will want to be out in the Pacific North of Hawaii instead of off the coast which would open the storm door.   What is not certain yet is what type of storms we will try to make their way in, but if they do they should be cold storms.  It’s too early to rely on the operational forecast models but they are showing the trough sticking around next week and increasing chances for storms as we move through the week.

It’s not surprising that the forecast models are starting to hint at a pattern change as the teleconnection forecasts point towards one. We have not seen the MJO progress into phases 1,2,3 in the Indian Ocean yet this Winter. The current forecast continues to show this.

The composites show increased chances of above normal precip for CA in these phases in February and March.

These images can all be found free on our favorite taxes financed weather site nws.noaa.gov.  The PNA forecast is also negative which could setup a pattern of troughing in the West and ridging in the East  with storms coming further South into CA.

Every time the PNA has gone negative this Winter the storm track has dropped into CA.  We had several storms in November and then the big storms the third week of January.  The forecast is for the PNA to go negative next week which would also help our chances of getting some storms into CA.  The strange thing so far with this Winter is that the PNA is usually spends a lot more time in the negative phase during a La Nina season.

So now we just wait and see what happens.  This has been a frustrating Winter so far and we have been grasping at straws everytime something slightly positive shows up in the pattern.  The signs we see this week for the next few weeks are the best we have seen since the week or two before the big snows in January.  This actually looks a little better to me even though we aren’t sure if we will get big storms if this pattern settles in, because it should last more than just a few days if it does.

We have a La Nina that is starting to fade just like we did last year in March and April and we know how that turned out.  Some of you have given up on Winter and the rest of you are probably like me and won’t believe the big snows will come until we are getting mouth fulls of powder.  But there are still 3 more months of Winter in a Tahoe season and we have seen stranger things than Winter showing up in March.  I like to live life thinking positive so I’ll be searching out any signs of snow until it’s time to break out the inner tube and beer float.  BA

Miracle March 2011 in Squaw Valley

Squaw Valley has only gotten 60-98 inches of snow this year making it the one of the worst seasons in recorded history.

December = suck.

January = lame, except for a sweet 60 inch storm.

February 1st-20th = lackluster.

The Forecast for the rest of February = hurtful.

Miracle March living accommodations

There is nothing in the 10 day forecast.  That puts us at 10-16 inches of snow in February.  Did you hear me?  10 measly Fing inches in the whole month of February.

Ok, I’m calming down now.  Via that facetious calmness a modicum of positivity is taking shape.  Taking shape in powerful bro-brah terminology:

MIRACLE MARCH in TAHOE:

March has saved a destitute Tahoe snow season more than once and even embellished a good season or two.

In 2009, March dropped 108 inches on Squaw:

In 2010, March unleashed 97 inches on Squaw:

In March 2011, it snowed big every single day adding up to 241 inches…damn…

In 2012, there are starting to be some signs of a good March if not a miraculous one.

Teleconnections forecast for March 4-10 with high pressure in red and low pressure in green. image TahoeWeatherDiscussion.com

“The forecast models are showing that now with increased chances of some bigger storms making it into CA for the end of the month and into the first week of March. The snow needs to hurry up because we are getting close to going below the driest season of 76-77 for snowpack.” - TahoeWeatherDiscussion.com

teleconnection forecast March 11-17. image TahoeWeatherDiscussion.com

The precipitation forecasts are looking good for March as well:

precipitation forecast March 4-10. image TahoeWeatherDiscussion.com

We are hanging onto a very very thin thread in Tahoe.  Our greatest hope for snow is, once again, about 14 days out…

precipitation forecast. image: TahoeWeatherDiscussion.com

Will we have a “Miracle March” this year in Tahoe?  I think so.  It wouldn’t take too much for March to the biggest snow month of the year in Tahoe, so why the hell not?

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s no doubt that Jim Jack was passionate about freeskiing. As head judge for the Freeskiing World Tour, he personally inspired freeskiers, young and old, to pursue their passion. In 2008, The Go Big Project crew headed to Snowbird to make a short film about a passion for freeskiing and the tour. The resulting film, SickBird, truly shows what a passion for skiing is all about, and so much of that was created by Jim Jack through the Freeskiing World Tour.

Although this film was originally dedicated to John Nicoletta, we’re hoping it gets re-dedicated to Jim Jack. He loved the video. Jim Jack will ski on forever with Ryan and John.

Holiday crowds in Gentian Gully

Many people suggested that today was probably the busiest day of the season at Alpine Meadows. The surprising thing is that some people did not see this coming. After all, it is Presidemt’s Day weekend, the start of Ski Week for many, it snowed a lot this week, and it was a bluebird day. It’s odd that some people were surprised by the crowds today and seemed bent out of shape that there were lift lines. So we heard some complaining and whining, but overall, there was plenty to smile about.

For all practical purposes, it was difficult to tell it had snowed much since last weekend. Coverage on most parts of the mountain remains the same. You still should be riding rock skis if you’re venturing far off piste. Conditions on piste also remain the same. Each night the groomers make miracles happen, but heavy weekend traffic scrapes things back to ice fairly quickly.

So getting the negatives out of the way first:

• The lift lines got pretty long at peak periods this weekend. The usual lines appeared at Summit and Roundhouse, often overflowing the corrals. Scott, Hot Wheels and Yellow also had some lines at times. But here’s an odd one…when’s the last time you saw line control at Subway? Yup, it happened today.

• Things stayed pretty cool for most of the weekend after a very warm Friday. This meant that off piste terrain that is not north facing was frozen pretty solid. Dentists around the western states danced merrily. That limited off piste terrain options and caused some groomers to get overloaded.

• Sherwood was a bust for most people this weekend. Sure it makes access for Alpine Peaks residents a lot easier, but snow coverage in Sherwood was minimal this weekend, and what was there was baked but not corny. The same could be said for most Scott Runs.

• The mountain has seen a lot of traffic this week. There were large moguls in place before the weekend started in high traffic areas. Mountain skied out mid-week? Huh, that IS what many of us feared would happen…

Plenty of positives for the weekend too. In my book, they outweighed the negatives by far.

• The north facing slopes were holding some great winter snow still. As we have been saying for several weeks, anything near the ABC is skiing well. Some areas are quite mogulled, but nearby are areas of nice soft snow. Our lines of choice in that area were ABC chairline to Lower Palisades to Deer Camp.

• The terrain parks at Alpine get better every day. More features are added nearly every day. The park does now indeed take all of the Dance Floor run. While this rerouting of skier traffic is somewhat akin to rerouting Highway 80 onto some alternate route, it seems to be working fine. There’s just too many details to tell you about in the park, but Alpine’s official site covers it well, as does their Facebook page. Entry and exits from the park are well controlled, which keeps out most casual traffic. That said, many skiers and boarders noted today that the park was the best groomer run due to the very limited amount of traffic.

The new entry to the Dance Floor park

• Gentian Gully continues to be a winning run for those that can deal with the sketchy entry and exits. We skied fresh and soft snow there all weekend with very minimal traffic. It’s definitely not easy terrain or conditions, but if you know the terrain and know the areas where you might cliff out or find a patch of willows…it was well worth the trip.

Looking ahead…there’s some warm temps in store for the week that will get the corn cycle going again this week. The long range forecasts are still trying to sell us on a miracle March forecast. This is the EC precip forecast for Feb 28 to March 10. We sure could use 8+ inches of precipitation, especially if it falls as snow.

EC Precip Model for 2/28-3/10

Photo courtesy OnTheSnow.com

The Presidents Day weekend is already upon us.  Time is moving too quickly for me.  It is sunny and warm this afternoon in Tahoe.  Roads are dry and water is dripping off the roof at my office along the Truckee River. This morning the temperature was just below 30, but by afternoon the temperature at the lodge appears to have increased to 48 degrees.

Sherwood was open this morning.  Snow coverage on the main run is okay, but it looked like there were patches of dirt just below the surface.  South Face was open (not sure why).  It looked very rocky and not appetizing at all.  At my suggestion, a group of us headed over the High T first run this morning.  My hope was to snag a little fresh snow.  Sherwood and the High T have not been open for most of the season.  The weekend it was open, I was not in town, so this would have been my first run on Sherwood for the year.

Personally, I enjoyed the run down Sun Bowl, but the rest of the gang looked like they would have been happy hanging me from one of the trees next to the Sherwood Lift.  The snow varied from okay, to heavy, to wind scoured, to a little crusty, to thinner than one would want for skiing.  Near the point where one has to head over toward the lift, bushes and rocks were all to apparent.  I crossed the drainage at the base of Sun Bowl and found a nice field of snow to plant my turn on, but I seemed to alone in my enjoyment of this particular trail.

Expert Shortcut held some very nice broken powder.  Groomed runs were pleasant enough. High Yellow, D7, and Peril Ridge offered good winter snow. Bobby’s and Ridge Run were nicely groomed and just a bit on the firm side in the morning.  Sticks, rocks, bushes and other obstacles remain visible all to frequently.  Dance Floor has now been engulfed with a wide terrain park. I guess this is no longer a recognizable trail for skiers.

Enjoy your day,

Andy

Click here to view the embedded video.

During one of the worst seasons on record we finally have some hope. Two small storms bringing a total of around 20″ of cold light powder reminded us why we love skiing. Alpine Meadows 2/15/2012

Video and words by Nick Covington

"Uhhh, when is it gonna snow?"

Snow. Yes, that’s right, snow! The forecast was called and just like clockwork, it came. In the late evening of Sunday the 12th and into the wee hours of the following morning, the Tahoe Basin finally received a much needed healing.

In most seasons, this 5” dusting was just that, a dusting. But in this winter, on this date, it represented far more than a mere 5” of snow. It was therapy, it was calming, and it was survival and job preservation.  Those 5 little inches accumulated on that weather plot were far more than notches on a headboard. It was, to date, 8.9% of our total cumulative snowfall for the season.  All said this was an EPIC POWDER DAY!

Wednesday morning we were fortunate enough to awake to nearly identical conditions. The east wind had definitely set things up a bit different on the hill, but hey, it was 4” of cold smoke. Flipping on the coffee pot at 7 am and surprised to see the temps and totals from the comfort of my living room and the www, I quickly came to the realization I wasn’t gonna make it to work at 10 am.

Stoke was in the air, the lift lines were short, and by “normal” winter standards the conditions weren’t great. But we all know, by this winter standards, it was EPIC. After several laps on KT and making my way to Headwall with 15 minutes to make it to work in Kings Beach, it hit me.

Are we Desperate or Die Hard?

Would you ditch work for 4” of dust on crust in any other season? Would McGovern have skied the Eagles Nest on Monday in any other year with those same day conditions? (Hands down the coolest thing I’ve ever witnessed someone do on skis.) Will you drive up this weekend to conditions that are at best, mediocre?  Will you bust out your new pow boards and ruin them, like many of us did today, because it’s the most snow we’ve had all season? Are you gonna ski that line that you know two days ago was low tide and full of chicken heads? What are you gonna do? What does that make you?

Desperate or Die Hard? 

"I'm not going down easy bitches!"

Julbo’s 120+ years experience in optical technology combined with the reputable wisdom of freeskiing legend Glen Plake, set snowsport-industry standards when it comes to freeride optical goggle innovation. Julbo is on the lookout for talented skiers and riders to carry the brand’s momentum as ambassadors via enrollment in the new Julbo Glen University Session(JGUS). Starting today, class is now in session, beginning with POW 101: photo contest, which can be found on page.

The 13-month accelerated program offered through JGUS is designed to discover the next generation of Julbo’s semi-professional ski and snowboarding athletes under the mentorship of “Professor” Glen Plake. Registered “scholars” must complete four out of eight online course. Courses will entail participating in a photo or video contest, writing and submitting an essay, tracking your vert in a weekend and mapping out a ski mountaineer trip and describing the route.

Followers and fellow peers will then be able to vote on contestant entries and give them a grade. Graduation of the top three to five performing students will take place in Julbo’s homeland of Chamonix, France in March 2013 with part-time local resident, Plake himself, as the head guide.

“Due to the vast development of outdoor equipment in recent years, a more natural skiing experience has been had accessible to many more people,” said Plake.” Now, more than ever before, I have to believe there is a new generation of ski mountaineers developing. We want to give them the opportunities that they may be looking for and deserve.”

Plake, an international ambassador for Julbo since 2009, is significantly involved with the product development of the Julbo goggle line, including the special edition Glenak goggle, which he designed with fellow European freerider, Enak Gavaggio. Plake was recently inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame for all his dedication, passion and contribution to the sport of skiing. The man behind the colorful mohawk is looking forward to sharing his enthusiasm for Julbo and all things skiing to the scholars of JGUS.

“Julbo is an established traditional outdoor brand, with a true mountain culture,” said Plake. “The Julbo Glen University Session is an authentic manifestation of Julbo’s dedication to sustaining this culture by supporting young talent and the pursuit of their outdoor dreams.”

For more information about JGUS and to follow the contest, please “like” Julbo USA’s Facebook page or visit Julbo’s blog for up-to-date company news, featured products, video, sponsored athletes, and much more.

For additional information on Julbo eyewear, visit Julbo’s website or call 800.651.0833.

JULBO – The World Needs Your Vision