Castle Peak Blower by Miles Clark & Adam Ruscitto

Castle Peak Low tide Powder! from Adam Ruscitto on Vimeo.

Last Thursday, December 10th, Adam Ruscitto and I headed up to Castle Peak just off of Donner Summit in Truckee, CA. It had just snowed about 3 feet of 5% water content snow and we were pumped on the idea of getting in some Colorado style blower turns. One and a half minutes out of the parking lot, one of my Alpine Trekker broke. I decided it could be fixed and somehow stuffed enough twigs into the thing that it miraculously worked. Feeling like MacGyver I continued on with Adam. On top we dug a full profile pit and despite being freaked out by 7 inches of sugar snow facets on the bottom, the snowpack was stable and we dropped in. The first run was a bit funky with some wind effected snow, but fun nevertheless. Our second lap was in a more protected zone and we found that true blower snow we sought. Every turn we made looked like grenades were falling out of our pockets; huge snow explosions everywhere. Satisfied, we started for home, thinking we were strong and fast. Reality was quite different. We ended up on the ridge-top after dark. Luckily, some low clouds rolled in and were reflecting the lights of Boreal Ski Resort down onto us. The ski back to the car was completely surreal with me watching Adam silhouetted against the lights of the ski hill. It was low tide and watching the sparks fly off of our skis as we continually hit rocks was otherworldly. We got back to the car at 6pm (in total darkness) exhausted, but stoked that we’d stashed a couple beers. We drank up and headed to Taco’s Jalisco in Truckee for more beer and some killer Mexican food. We had a few laughs there and plotted our next adventure.