Spring has sprung at Palisades, making for a lovely day of warm weather, strong sunshine, and epic riding.
This blog was written by Rene Jerez
Today was a warm one! When I arrived at the Palisades parking lot the temperature was already in the mid 40’s and the sun was blasting even harder than it was yesterday, and as I expected the snow had softened up considerably compared to what I was riding yesterday. For this trip I’ve been staying at the south side of the lake and down in the basin it was thick fog so I was stoked to see the sunshine out in Olympic Valley. It felt so warm I didn’t even bother to wear my neck gaiter and I had to open up all of the air vents on my jacket.
I started my day off riding down Siberia Ridge like I did on Saturday, and rode down to the Gold Coast lift. Since I had such a blast going down Emigrant I decided to focus most of my morning on this part of the resort. My warmup lap was down Emigrant Face, and the snow there was super soft and slushy.
For my second descent down from Emigrant I figured I’d try Attic, which is a black diamond run I’ve never done before. Attic was really awesome, and even though there were a lot of moguls closer to the end of the run I loved it and can’t wait to tackle it again in the future! The snow there was also amazingly soft, and it was getting so warm now people were stripping down to wearing just t-shirts. After Shirley Lake, I did some laps there for a bit.
After getting my laps at Shirley Bowl I felt like going up Emigrant again, but this time attempted a run-down Funnel, entering via the 2nd gate down from the chairlift. This was my first ever Tahoe double black, and I felt so proud of myself for getting down back to the Shirley Lake lift base without falling down or riding down sideways most of the trail. This is definitely a great trail for those looking into advancing from the black diamonds to the harder double blacks, and more so with all of the great spring snow.
After Funnel, I took a lunch break and hit it hard again for a second run down. My second Funnel run was a lot faster now that I had an idea of what the terrain there is like and then did a few laps back into Shirley Lake. I haven’t been hitting the park so much in the past month while in Utah and Oregon, so I felt like doing park laps, working on getting air on the ramps. Belmont Park, like with the KT-22 crowd, has such a fun and positive vibe! It felt great to be back there and to see how much the park set up has changed while I was out of state.
On my third park lap, I actually managed to get the most air I’ve ever done on a jump without sending it too hard to the ground, and like with doing my first Tahoe double black earlier I felt a huge sense of personal accomplishment. I finished the day up with a run down Siberia Bowl and another lap down KT-22 via Sadlde Bowl. I have a feeling sooner than later I’ll be shredding down the face of KT in no time!
With the warm weather and soft, spring snow It was without a doubt a great Easter to be spending on the slopes! Tomorrow we should see similar conditions and I’m definitely looking forward to getting in more spring skiing to wrap up the amazing season we’ve been having.
