Timeless

Assuming you meant "steep", yes it has plenty over on the right as you look up the hill. Maybe even steep enough for super-heroes like yourself. it's effectively the backside of Squaw valley so has very similar terrain. would this qualify?

More forecast for Thursday-Saturday, heading up for this weekend.

Taking the kids to Disneyland this weekend, 2 days in tahoe starting next Friday. Snow looks like it's coming for a while so should be great.

simply awesome....epic even.

Okemo's grooming is excellent, I dont think anyone would disagree with that, the only place even close to this (that allows snowboarders) that I've come across was Homewood in Tahoe, quite a surprise. IMHO Blue's grooming is poor because they don't give a sh1t. All the other resorts in the area do a better job, mostly with the same restrictions on time and resources. Most of the resorts here in tahoe are similarly (but not as) bad, but they get away with it because no-one cares about the cord-quality, just how soon it will break up into chalk.

he's in wyoming..... Sorry, that was a cheap shot.....

looks awesome, keep the pictures coming. Tell doug to smile for the camera & not look so worried.

sounds like a recipe for a whole bunch of broken legs

Looks great out there, must be really windy cos all the trees are leaning up the hill.....

The weather blogs over here on the west coast are talking about a major pattern change that will flip you guys back into a warm pattern and bring the snow back to us for the latter part of February, BUT, they are also counting down the east coast storms (3 more before the shift) and saying that the last one could be the "storm of the century", not sure if that just means the biggest since the year 2000 or if it's a hundred year event, but either way it seems there are a lot of people concurring that this will be one huge storm hitting you guys at or shortly after the 10th.

Quite the opposite actually, though I would have thought this too before I was here. It's really nice to enjoy the mild sunny weather knowing that for each storm that brings rain for a day to the bay area, the mountains are picking up feet of snow. In a few weeks it will be warm enough to be on the beach on saturday and ski on sunday. tasting rooms are not open that early, the ride home has been known to be quite lengthy......

Cycled to work through the vineyards this morning, a little chilly at 40 degrees but the sunshine in the valley was nice and warming. High 60's for the ride home this afternoon, Kirkwood this weekend. Hope you guys all make it thorugh the ice OK and that the skiing gets back to normal pretty quickly. The ice-storms in PA are a memory that will stick with me forever.

I miss early mornings at camelback. Strange, but true.

What happened to this? Was the whole thing a washout? Did they make it back alive?

Honestly the views from Squaw, Alpine, Heavenly etc are cool, but there is something about the closeness to the lake at Homewood that seriously makes you stop mid-run to take it all in, it's almost un-nerving in places where you see the run pitching away in front of you and all you can see beyond is water. 3 hours from Morgan Hill to Sugarbowl (closest), nearly 4 hours to Squaw etc, about the same to south lake and Kirkwood. With commuter traffic if you time it wrong, that can easily turn into 5+ hours, just have to think about it a little. For sure..... with a lot of powder at Homewood, did you find it difficult to get back to the lifts, seemed like the traverses might have been painful in deep snow.

You should try a rocker, but I am not sure the differences over a "normal" cambered board would be so beneficial with mostly "firm" groomers. I have a dark series Lib with Magna Traction which I bought while I was still in PA and loved the way it blasted through that frozen re-groomed crud you get at the top of rocket most mornings. I think it may even have been the ideal board for Blue Mountain cookies. Just so impressed by the lib tech's, 3 years on my Dark and I was still really reluctant to go get a new one. Happy now that I did though. Glad to hear that, I wonder if they patented the idea? Just following up on this, the powder varies from this, 5 days after a storm at northstar To this (more typical but not the lightest)3 days after a storm at Sugarbowl Such a relaxed vibe out here though, especially at Alpine Meadows, one of my favorite all time places to be.

Sorry about the 5 degree slope on the horizon, it seems to sneak into quite a lot of shots I take while sitting on the hill.

Of the many powder days I was lucky enough to experience last year and so far this season (before the taps were turned off at new year), the powder varied from light fluffy "blower" to quite heavy wet snow that whilst deep was not easy to move through. It's pretty easy to see in advance what it will be with the incoming storm track producing colder or warmer storms and varying snow ratios. More often than not, it's tue powder rather than "cement", especially in the early and middle season, less so in the late spring.

A combined trip / conditions report and some thoughts on my new gear (C2-BTX lib-tech board and Rome Targa bindings) So first the trip, I had a couple of friends from the east coast fly out for a long weekend, renting a condo on the approach road to Squaw Valley, if anyone is looking at this kind of accomodation, I would recommend these condo's, the "Tavern Inn condo's", easy access for Squaw and Alpine, quite close to route 89 on the access road, nice spacious townhouse and reasonably priced. They weren't as luxurious as the village condo's where I stayed with my family a couple of weeks back but still nice enough (and much cheaper). Conditions up in Tahoe are pretty sketchy by local standards, with no significant snow for over 20 days, but for an east coaster they still seen pretty nice, and it's hard to complain when it's in the high 40's, sunny, blue skies etc... We did Squaw on saturday which was pretty frozen up in the morning but the groomers were pretty nice, especially the runs down from emmigrant, siberia and granite chief (consistently the best groomer at squaw IMO), only made frustrating by the fact that they wouldn't open the granite lift due to "firm conditions" which meant that any run had to be accessed from the backside via emmigrant and then an extra lift taken to get back over the "shirley" ridge, quite time consuming. The off groomer stuff never really softened above high camp but on the way back to the base area we found some pretty decent soft stuff to bounce through. No pic's from here 'cos I left my camera at the condo. Sunday at Alpine where they were holding the "Banzai" downhill race from the top of beaver bowl to the base lodge. Considering the "firm" conditions as it was run in the morning, these guys were hauling ass, if you haven't seen any of the info on this race you should check it out on sugarbowl's website as they are organizing the series. next round at Kirkwood in feb. We spent most of the day on the "backside" area off of the sherwood lift as this gets the first and most sun and everyone else seemed to be on the other side which was just crusty groomers. This area did soften nicely in the afternoon and we had much fun on the so called "south face" wich was pretty bumped up but at least soft by early afternoon. I did get some pic's from here..... Last day I could only do half a day and given the conditions we decided to check out homewood. I wasn't expecting too much but came away pretty impressed. The first thing you can't escape there is the stunning views of the lake from pretty much everywhere on the resort. In one or two places it was simply breathtaking. Running down the front face towards "glory hole" it felt like you could just fly off into the lake. Just for this you should visit here on a bluebird day, this has to be a pure Tahoe experience. The runs were generally short, but quite a few nice steep pitches, the trees looked amazing, but the conditions were not allowing that and some of the better looking areas (quail face) were actually closed. We ran pretty much all over the north side of the resort, the best of which were a couple of black runs down from rainbow ridge which were slightly softened by the sun, but still pretty "firm", then heading back to the base found a run called glory hole which was in pretty spectacular condition considering the weather. All in all, as I said I was surprised by Homewood and would definitely look to go back for another low-key day during a tahoe trip. Pic's from here too. Finally some gear comments, this was the first weekend for me on a rockered board and despite the conditions being mostly not where you would feel the benefit, I came away very impressed. The board in question was one of the hybrid rocker+camber designs (a lib-tech TRS)and it handled everything with confidence. A couple of observations though: At very low speeds on hard surfaces it feels quite like there is a single,round contact point in the center and it slides around all over the place, takes a little getting used to. Also, it felt MUCH more confident on all types of terrain from groomers to soft stuff with a wider stance (weighting the camber areas more by default?). The board was very comfortable hauling down groomed blacks and it turns very smoothly, didn't notice any lack of rebound out of turns, can't comment on it's park ability as I was only jumping on natural rollers and stuff but nothing to concern me in the way of pop / stability. Overall a big thumbs up, highly recommend that everyone tries one. I picked up a set of Rome Targa's for the new board, really like the straps and the canted footbeds. Not super-impressed with the initial quality, mounting disks are pretty poorly made, alignment not great and the "pad" under the baseplate was badly glued on which stopped it seating properly until I scraped all the glue out. Three days riding though and they are super comfortable, nice flex on the middle setting, great high backs. Very pleased now that they are on and set-up, really nice combination with the board. The little rubber strap on the main straps to pull them out of the way is genius, for as long as they last. Sorry for such a long post, hope you enjoy the pic's.

Welcome to the west Barb. It's hard to explain to people back home but when you live here and can choose your days to coincide with the (much more frequent) availability of new snow, you tend to find these days more often than not. Just reading your post reminded me of my first few days out here and wondering how it could be this good so often. Even the "bad" days out here are worthy of a vacation trip, this weekend I have friends coming out from NJ/PA and we will have sunny skies, 100+ inch base and warm (45 degree) days, by local standards this is terrible for this time of year but it's going to be a great weekend.

A lot more skiers think they are the next bode, not in the drinking and substance abuse sense....

you could probably read anything you want into those kind of statistics. In the "helpful hints" section they gave three ways to avoid injuries they had just said were now "non existent"... and they forgot "don't ski into immovable obstacles at speed"

Hope you guys get some decent snow out of this one, all is quiet over here on the west coast, no real snow for 10 days and none in the forecast for maybe 2 weeks. It's hard to feel bad about it when the weather down in the bay area is so nice, but I wish it would snow like it had been up until early January.

flat's and uphill's are a pain, but if you are adept at strapping in / out and have decent bindings then this is not so bad. first chair is not so important anymore, thousands of acres to explore and powder on most trips.