photo: www.seattle.metblogs.com
Poem by Jason Dobbs
It was one of those days to pass your last lap’s tracks by a few feet, then succumb to the fall line. The base reported a doldrum inch, and nary more than three times that at the highest elevations, and the local weather has better resembled London’s than Tahoe’s recently. So like the couple weeks of where-is-Spring? before it, this morning took a hearty breakfast and a warming cup of coffee to face the brisk winds of flaking spit. Parking lot doubts lingered though evidenced thin crowds, and after deliberating between starting KT-to-Headwall, we blindingly opted for Funitel-to-Granite only to debark and see an unlit Granite Chief of the mid-station light boards. They have one at the bottom too. Refused foresight. Cut our losses, or ski the Blues? Figured we may as well check out the girl’s left side.
Heading left at the top of Shirley, we set the highest traverse through grabby sludge, up and over the Chutes Knob, to a beauty of a Break it Out, leaving serpentine sigs in the soggy snow. “That was awesome!” Next lap, we just exceeded the truet of tracks which had taken our cue, by enough meters to not cross one on the way down. Once we had smeared all of Corkscrew, and the ungroomed, but smoother-than-groomed-Granite-“groomer” we ventured to Headwall, and got disappointingly close before realizing the six-pack was stagnant. Well, it was a bitchin’ ride of Mountain Run, jibbing off the sides like a wintry Burnside. My fair lady KT escorted us to the top of her familiar draping curves, where we began heading out only as far as Tombstone to find an untracked descent. Again, we followed each run one contour further North into Los Hermanas, and ultimately, to an obscenely straight-forward, but still thrilling Adrenaline Chute, as the majestic light of California sun through thin, precipitous clouds and fog filtered selectively through passing gales.
Our final attack was to Heidi’s, Tom’s, Dead Man’s, and the neighboring terrain, by which time enough had ventured that we had to cross an eleven now and then, but the goods lasted, and were far more luxuriate than the ads appeared. 20,000 vert and a few zero gravity moments later, it was just past noon, and lunch unbound me, and I headed back to Truckee. The sun is shining, and rivers are rushing, but the brisk winds keep you on guard, as a reminder that one day winter will rest at this latitude until some yet-determined day next fall. We’ll line up the gates and watch as our snow totals reset, and we reminisce about the great winter of 2011, and try to make our years the best possible by seeking the best lines with the best friends, leaving the rest to the clouds. In between, we’ll move on to our summer sports, our summer jobs, our summer lives, loving it, but at a certain point (for me, after 2 weeks, for others, perhaps more sane, as the post-Labor-days shorten) craving a face shot and a stomp. In between, we have to live off the highlights of ski memories, and that most recent powder day. That’s why I told our Funitel’s co-passengers who fretted about missing the good days amidst our casual 100″ storms to redeem their gratis Squaw tickets that they were in luck, because today was in fact, going to be the best day of the season. “Really?” they asked. I hadn’t schussed in the fierce incher –just 1 of 700- we had yet. All I had done is eat eggs in a drizzle-storm, and readied myself in a gusty lot below, so I didn’t fully believe myself, but I maintained it would be optimum. It was, and in August, when the dusty trails of Tahoe’s Rim counter the refilled reservoir of 68º Tahoe spread below, April 21st will be the perfect day. That’s why the next time I wake up in a rainstorm and the lifts are still kindly spinning, I’ll head back to that windy lot to boot up.
