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Showing posts from January, 2021

Pictures are worth a thousand words... enjoy.

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Biggest Storm in Years

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 The most intense storm since the storm cycle of 2017 is poised to hit the Sierra beginning tonight. Two warnings point to a biggee: 1) a Winter Storm Warning has been issued for the Northern Sacramento Valley including Chico, Red Bluff and Redding which is extremely rare, and: 2) A Blizzard Warning has been issued for the Sierras beginning tonight and running through Friday.  This will create extreme avalanche potential on all slopes. North and East slopes in particular have a dangerous temperature gradient snow layer on the ground level which increases the potential for large destructive avalanches as the slide may break all the way to the ground taking all the new snow with it. Secondly, the winds are forecast to be heinous which will load leeward slopes more than others in such a short time that they will not have much time to stabilize, particularly given the cold temps associated with this storm.  Extreme caution is advised to all backcountry users during the rest of this week an

Poli'ahu: Hawaiian Snow Goddess coming to a mountain near you...

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The models have come into agreement and when Tahoe Weather Blog and Weather West both say we can expect multiple feet of snow, then you better wax up your skis and shovels. When looking at the liquid precip equivalent and the low temps of this forecast, combined with a subtropical moisture tap is very reminiscent of some of the storms we got in February of 2017. Yes, folks I am betting the house on a minimum of 48" of snow in the Carson Range, and perhaps more.  Batten down the hatches. You can expect blizzard conditions sometime Wed and Thursday which may interrupt transportation and lift operations Sierra wide. This is not a moderate storm but something to prepare for. With the snow levels low enough to bring flakes to parts of the Sacramento Valley and foothill communities like Redding, Placerville and Auburn AND Reno you can expect traffic snarls, road closures, power outages and other issues late this week.  Somebody out there did their snow dance and did a damn good job of i

Think slides are no "Big Deal"? Think again.

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Those of you who have a modicum of avalanche awareness know that the history of the snowpack is an important ingredient of any avalanche forecast and snowpack assessment. If you have been out much this year and have poked around in the existing snowpack you already know there is a persistent deep layer of unconsolidated temperature gradient or TG snow sitting at the bottom of the Northern Sierra snowpack on most Northern and Eastern exposures in many places due to our early thin snowpack and occasional cold snaps.  If we get repeated storms resulting in a heavy snowpack on top of this crushable and unstable layer the situation can result in deep and destructive large avalanches. This condition is common in Continental snowpacks but much less so in Maritime climates such as our own. That being said, conditions have set up so far in the Northern Sierra's for potential extreme avalanche conditions in the future should we receive heavy snow. As storms begin to move in it should give ev

Storms a'comin...

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 As you can see the 14 day precip model is looking awfully rosy for us... Color are in inches of water so if true, this could be many feet of snow coming our way. Please navigate over to our friends at www.tahoeweatherblog.com for more detailed info on the optimistic forecast. Sven

How do you know its Low Tide in the West?

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 You KNOW its low tide in the West when Snowbrains puts out a Powder Alert with a multitude of photos of 1" of new snow in Utah.  THAT is a sad state of affairs. Looks like we may get some smaller storms coming our way starting next weekend although the models seem to be all over the place after the first 2" to 4" dump on Saturday. The prognosticators are doing what they do and are all over the map as well. I cautiously predict... we may get something and "something" is better than nothing at this point. We have now been skiing on about 1.5 feet of snow all season so far plus all the frozen water the snowmakers have added to the pistes for our pleasure.  Sven

Just like the olden days...

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 Pulled into the Slide Mountain parking lot Sunday morning at 8:35 with standard expectations of 300 cars ahead of me... the way its been most of the season but, to my surprise... the first row wasn't even filled. Less than a dozen cars and many of those were employees. My wife and I could'd believe it. By the time we got our gear on and were poling into the gates I looked up and still... no skiers. Were they open? Was there a wind hold? Nope, no signs as we pulled right through the entrance and onto the chair where I heard... "Public, Chair 48". Checked on the chair number over my head. Yep, that was us. Now a couple more peeps were coming through the gates as I looked back. 8:40 and we were the first chair... on a weekend? THAT hasn't happened in a long time. Given the fact that the off-piste was a frozen wasteland of frozen vegetables and the wind forecast was for single digits and strong East winds... yeah, OK, thats gunna scare some folks off... but all of th

More drought news...

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 Looking bad all over the West with the exception of the NW, Washington is doing pretty darn well with the large Pineapple Express storm they got. Mt. Baker is reporting tons of wet deep snow covered with dry pow and then back to wet... a crappy snow sandwich perhaps but better than what we have. In case you were thinking of escaping to Utah here is the drought monitor for the West as of this week.  Spring conditions will again hit the slopes today and so will I, between 11 and 1 will be your best window! Sven

Mercury Rising

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 Skiing has been spring-like as long as you follow the sun and are at Rose in the middle of the day. If not.. bad news with your choice between frozen vegetables or sheet ice (what the resort would call "Firm Conditions" near the very bottom of the snowpack... speaking of the snowpack. There isn't much of it. Although the Rose side is skiing pretty well on-piste the sun's effects are showing on the Slide side. Although, skiing is still excellent in the trees between Bonanza and Zephyr as long as you avoid the roads and logs which occasionally protrude. Even Bruces and Zephyr are skiable as long as you slow it down and take care to avoid the obstacles. Thank being said, the thermometer on my truck read 54 today and for the middle of January (Juneary more like) and that is not healthy on a meager snowpack on top of the daily receding low tide. Gotta hand it to Dave and his crew of groomers... they are mining snow wherever they can find it and keep covering up the skid m

Palmer Drought Index... so far.

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 Greetings all,  Well, winds have ravaged the BC pow quite a bit but there are isolated pockets of good snow still waiting out there if you hunt and peck. The actual surface conditions will remain quite good on the groomers in the morning and in the trees through the middle of the week. Get your turns in now tho as Juneuary is about to descend upon us late this week and through the weekend. Expect highs in the 60's in the valleys and 50's up in the hills. This will not be good for an already meager snowpack. With temps too high at night to make snow, you can expect to see skid marks again rear their ugly faces, especially on any slopes getting more direct sun exposure (like Silver Face).  Tahoe is now approaching and will reach less than 50% snowpack average in places this week. Our fall quarter snowfall was weak in Tahoe and much of the West and improvement is not forecast anytime soon. The Palmer Drought Index kind of says it all. Green and blue is good, yellow, red and brown

Waiting and wondering: Is it worth it?

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 So, with a few inches of new snow in what so far has been a meager year and all passes good again... a photo was sent in by Sue of Zephyr Load this morning. I can't imagine the line if we get a real powder day with a couple of feet of cold smoke, you might be faster skinning up the hill. According to sources the wait was well over 25 minutes at times today. I know we are all anxious to get some skiing in but, jeez, you gotta stop and wonder where you draw the line of whether its worth the wait. For me its not as I would rather throw on a pair of skins and catch some freshies the natural way, but for all of you that went, good on you. You have more patience that I.  I really hope Rose can find a way to load more folks in a chair, perhaps put another single in the middle or something to help shorten the wait. Seems more dangerous to let this many people mill around sharing air than putting a third person its the middle, or how about we have a "Chair Stuffers" line that sig

Kristmas Krowds a little rocky

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 Sunny days and little pow dumps have left the slopes a little nicer lately although today parts of Bonanza were a foggy bottomed gravel hazard. Looks like a tiller hit pay dirt bigtime and spread that shit way downhill on the left side. Ski carefully instead of carefree if you are headed that way.  Face runs and the rest of the Rose side provided great snow conditions although the freezing fog on your lens was a little frustrating. Wind was blowing and crowds were out big time on the Rose side. By 10 am it was time to ski home and be done with it. For those if you that enjoy the social interaction of the line's slow movement... its your day to shine.  As always the Slide Dogs were on it keeping the Zephyr spinning and crowds moving through the gates whether they knew what they are doing or not. I cannot say the same for the other side where chair stops were pretty common today and staff was not standing at the gate "helping" customers figure out when and where to move to