Here To There

The family came down to Tahoe for their first California ski trip over Spring Break. We stayed in the Koffel Cabin (Alpine Rental Group). The cabin was great: it has lots of windows looking out onto the field behind the house; it’s off of Alpine Road, so it’s very convenient; and it’s at the end of a cul-de-sac, so it’s nice and quiet.

As Sam and I drove up on Friday evening it started snowing and by the time we woke up in the morning there were 6 good inches of new, but slightly wet, snow on the ground. We fired up the old van and headed up to the hill. It was pretty windy and it kept snowing the rest of the day, so the only lift that was open was the main express. Despite being limited to one lift, we found some pretty good rruns in the trees on the front. At the end of the day I ran into Sam and he took me on the run he’d been going on most of the day—it was the best skiing on the whole mountain. I would mention Sam’s multiple double releases, but I think I’ll spare him the embarrasment.

It kept snowing all Saturday and the temperature finally dropped so it was light and fluffy. We didn’t think much of it until the next morning, when we realized that there was a good 18” on the driveway, and that we were at the end of a very long cul-de-sac. Since we were at the end of the line, the plows weren’t expected to get to our street until after they had finished everybody elses, so the boys started shoveling snow from the driveway. At about 8 a plow finally came down the road, but it turned out that he was just the driveway guy, so the boy’s work was for nothing and the road was still blocked after he left. So we decided to hike out to the road and hitch a ride up to the mountain.

The skiing was amazing! It stopped snowing, got a bit sunny and wasn’t windy at all, so all of the lifts opened up. The Promised Land even opened up for a little bit. We skiied just about every off-piste run on the mountain, and never had to do any more than once. They may deny it later, but Coleman and Dad said it might have been the best skiing they’d ever done.

The alarm went off at 5:00 am and we were on the road by 5:30. Next time we should pack the trunk the night before to cut down on take off time. The drive up took exactly 3 hours, so we were at the mountain by 8:30 and on the slopes by 9. The snow was amazing!! Some good runs that I checked out were the Palisades, Scott’s Chute, The Chute That Seldom Slides and Promised Land.

On Apine Bowl Lift, the Palisades is good. To get there, go to the top of Alpine Bowl lift, traverse under the hut and as far as you can go. You can basically head straight down (crossing the grommed run occaisionally) to hit the most off-piste. Don’t bother doing the hike directly out the left side of the hut unless you’re going to High Traverse. As far as I could tell, it doesn’t get you around the cornice to Lower Saddle/Keyhole.

Scott’s Chute, The Chute That Seldom Slides and Promised Land are all off Scott Chair. Good access to Scott’s Chute if you ski to the top of the run and head down in the trees to the right. You can then keep veering right for maximum trees. I still need to find the official entry to The Chute That Seldom Slides, which is to the left of Scott Chair (off of Scott Ridge Run). I tried going along the cliff line parrallel to the run until I ran into it. There has to be a better approach. Also, the next time I go on Promised Land I’m going to try to stay as far right as I can (close to the boundary). I found a cut off towards the bottom that cuts out the hike out. PS - Don’t try to ski to your car if you’re parked on the opposite side of the lot!! It’s a long walk around.

Next time I want to try High Traverse, which can start out on Summit 6 or Alpine Bowl Chair. From Summit 6, take the high traverse/hike and from Alpine Bowl Chair take the hike directly out the left side of the hut. Drop down to Sherwood Chair from there. Also, when coming back up Sherwood Chair, you can head directly over to the front by going through the trees for some pretty steep looking runs. The other thing to try out is how to get to Badger Bowl. I think you just cut across the entrace to Wolverine Bowl and hike over the ridge.

The drive back was fine until we hit Berkeley. It took us 2 hours to get home from that point. Remember to pack food in the car in case you don’t want to have to stop for some!

We drove to Reno on Friday night. The drive took from about 8:00 pm to 12:30 am. Not much traffic, but it wasn’t easy since we were so tired. We stayed at the Sands—wouldn’t recommend staying there again; the Nugget is a much better dive. Michael, Shannon and Thad drove up a little later and got in around 2 am.

We took off at about 8:30 am for NorthStar, and arrived there around 9:15 am. Getting to the top of the mountain involves 3 chair lifts, so we didn’t start our first run until 10:30 am. The mountain didn’t feel very big: you were either on the front lifts with a ton of people or skiing the backside with a limited number of runs. I don’t love the resort.

Sam and I met up with the family in Oregon for a ski weekend before Christmas. We flew into Eugene and drove from there to SunRiver. It was nice to show Sam the state a bit since he hadn’t ever driven through it. The snow wasn’t great at Bachelor, but we had lots of fun eating (as always on family vacations!), playing games and taking long walks in the snow.