Cold, winter snow and bluebird conditions made the skiing and riding all-time today.
This blog was written by James Yim.
The late start train was the name of the game today. I knew the crowds would be out in full force with all of the recent snow so I decided to take it easy this morning and come out for the afternoon shift.
Winds were high this morning and a lot of the upper mountain lifts began the day on wind hold. From what I gathered, the morning had long lines on the lower mountain, high winds, low visibility, and light snowfall with minimal accumulation. I was quite happy to miss all of that.
When I got to Palisades shortly after 12 noon, I experienced zero traffic coming from Tahoe City and was able to snag a parking spot very close to the village. The skies turned blue and we had about two hours of beautiful blue skies and cold winter snow. Jackpot!
The Mothership (KT-22) delivered just what the doctor ordered – cold, soft, grippy snow that was so fun to ski through. Rock Garden had to be the run of the afternoon with the steep fall line, amazing snow quality, and ideal sunlight. I must have done 4 Rock Garden laps in a row; the snow was that good. West Face and Chute 75 also had really fun powder bumps.
I never made it over to the east of KT but was seeing some really fun-looking lines down Tom’s Tumble and Red Dog Ridge. It was also really good to see Olympic Lady spinning today.
One thing to note is that the wind has been howling on the upper mountain for a while now, so there will be some wind-scoured faces as well as some wind deposits. If you can figure out which way the wind was blowing the night before and where the wind-blown snow deposits are, you can be rewarded for your efforts.
