97 inches is what it ended up being here at Squaw Valley, California. That’s 8 feet of snow, humans. Yep, 8 feet of snow in 4 days. Kirkwood’s website says that they got 152 inches (over 12 feet) of snow out of this storm and they’re claiming that it’s the “The greatest 7 day total in the world.” That’s bold, but possibly true. Squaw is claiming 97” (about 8 feet) and it’s still a helluvan impressive total. Thank God I didn’t have to have surgery this week.
The real story was the water content. The storm rolled up in true nipple-hardening fashion and left us with temps in the teens and 5% water content snow – 8 feet of it. Did I mention that we got 8 feet of snow? Oh, I did, okay, yeah, 8 feet…in 4 days…at 5%…it was good.
The benefit of that low snow density was that we actually got to ski every inch of it. Often in Tahoe, we get huge storms that dump 5 feet, but we really only get to ski the top 10 inches because of the high snow density. This stuff was champagne powder (warning: this term is very over used in Utah – that snow out there will break you’re f#$king face!) and you got to ski every inch of it because it was so dry and you were trenched into the stuff. It was a face-shot-frenzy that frequently left you gasping for air, choking on snow, and completely blinded by your own awesomness.
How good was it really, you may be asking (especially if you missed out). Well, put simply, it was the best. I’m fairy confident that we don’t get storms like this very often. And, if it really was the “greatest 7 day total in the world”, then technically, we’ve never had a storm like this. And for it to come in at 5%? This was the storm of storms. I’ve never skied snow as deep as I did during this storm in my life (except when I was at Kirkwood in 2001 when we got 98 inches of snow in 48 hours, that was kinda deep, too). It’s the California magic that we all love and all the other states are insanely jealous of. Ever noticed the scoff you get in Utah, Colorado, or Jackson when you tell people you’re from Tahoe? Yeah, that’s deeply routed in their jealously of our California awesomeness. Learn to accept it, understand it, and feel sorry for them. They just wanna be more like you, and it hurts them.
Being greedy snow-mongering freaks that us awesome Californians are, we’re already thinking of the next storm and wanting more. “Oh, well, then there is no pleasing you.”
Tahoeweatherdiscussion.com gives us the lo-down:
“Then a cold and slowing moving low will move down the coast and rotate in moisture off of the Pacific starting sometime on Thursday. We are looking at 20:1 snow ratios and 1-2 inches of liquid, so that should be around 2-3 feet of snow. Depending on whether the low can tap that additional moisture and how much, we could be talking more snow.”
I was so worked yesterday that I couldn’t even hike Mainline nor Granite Chief Peak, the only spots on the mountain yesterday with totally fresh snow. But, I feel good about resting up and hitting Silverado hard today because it was all-time.
Tomorrow, I think they’ll open up the Palisades for the first time and it’s gonna be a show down, Old West style. We’ll see who shows up.
Check out our videos from this storm for evidence of the TRUTH:
(in chronological order)
Stupid Deep – Feb 17, 2011
Too Deep – Feb 18
97 Inches – Feb 19
California Storm Totals:
Kirkwood – 152″
Sugar Bowl – 107″
Alpine Meadows – 119” (how can this be any different than Squaw’s? It’s the same exact ridge.)
Squaw Valley – 97″
Mammoth – 92″