TAHOE: The land of never ending snow.

Saturday morning I dropped Mariah off at the airport at 6:00am. Apparently they don't get snow in Portland because it was the talk of the town the previous night. This even went to the point of locals calling it a 'Snowpocalyspe' and questioning whether it will beat the 'Snowpocalypse' of 2016. After getting out of Portland and some of the most unsure drivers I have ever seen, the snow had melted and a beautiful sight, full of a color I hadn't seen in a long time presented itself.

I was surrounded by rolling valleys of green grass, coniferous forests, and mountains in the background. Unfortunately, within a couple hours of driving the white blizzardous conditions I knew all to well had once again become my reality. Hearing that an unbelieveable storm was headed through Tahoe, I pushed myself 600 miles and a total of 14 hours to make it to Tahoe in one shot. Throughout 10 hours of driving through heavy snow and/or blizzard conditions I only had one close call on the road.

Unfortunately I was unable to ski on Sunday due to what had become a common occurence in the Lake Tahoe area this season. Too much snow had fallen and it was too light causing extreme Avalanche danger. So what to do on a day you can't ski? Eat of course. Still in search of the worlds best breakfast burrito, I headed to the Fire Sign Cafe on the west side of Lake Tahoe. While the burrito I had wasn't quite as good as Taos's Bumps Grill Burrito, the side of potatoes were among the best potatoes I've ever had. I spent the rest of the day at the Java Hut in Kings Beach working on my blog. That night Mariah's cousin Greg had made it back to his house where I would stay for the next week. We had steaks and watched a documentary on Netflix I would highly recommend about Yosemite's rock climbing heritage called Valley Uprising.

Monday was arguably the best ski day I have had this trip. If you've ever watched a ski movie, it was one of those unbelievable deep bluebird powder days. Being my first day at Squaw Valley, it was all I could have ever assumed squaw would be. I got in line for KT-22 chair about an hour before lift open and there were already a couple hundred people ahead of me. A few minutes after the lifts started spinning, the first of the squaw locals started showing off on the KT fingers. Everytime someone would take a line through the fingers and launch off the rocks, the whole base of the chairlift would be in an uproar. The skiing was unreal all day. Highlighted runs were Red Dog Ridge and West Face, just west of the fingers. Deep snow, amazing skiers to watch, fantastic views, and a hike to the top of Granite Peak summarized the day very well.

Tuesday was a pretty good day, though the terrain was limited. I headed to Alpine Meadows to see how it compared to Squaw. After one run on the Summit express, all the upper mountain lifts were put on windhold for what would end up being the rest of the morning. I took a few runs on a few different pairs of my skis and ultimately decided the lower mountain lifts of Alpine were boring. Around noon I drove down the road to Squaw Valley. Though most of the mountain was closed, KT-22 chair was open. I skied that for the rest of the day and enjoyed many runs on Mosely's run and the West Face.

On Wednesday, mother nature threw a curveball at old man winter. The Tahoe area recieved multiple inches of rain at all elevations below 8000 feet. This meant the bottom third of every ski area was getting rain. Being the diehard that I am, I attempted to ski anyway. 2 runs on the Red Dog chairlift at squaw was all it took to get me off the slopes. The snow was extremely slow and practically grabbed your skis and brought them to a hault at every turn. Thursday morning the rain turned to snow and the wind picked up. With 150 mph gusts at the top of the mountains most resorts were closed. I decided to take the day off.

Friday was yet another powder day. I decided to give Heavenly ski area a shot. My goal was to ski Mott canyon so I headed to the Nevada side of Heavenly. While the upper mountain was closed and I never got to Mott Canyon. The Nevada side of Heavenly had some great snow but was not steep enough for the nearly 2 feet of snow that was present. For the last hour of the day I drove over to the California side of heavenly as it couldn't be reached by chairlift due to high winds. I hindsight, I wish I would've spent the whole day on the CA side. The Gun Barrel express the main lift on the lower front face of this side of Heavenly, it services only black and double black terrain. Every spring a mogul competition called the Gun Barrel 25 takes place. The first person to ski the 1600 vertical feet of moguls 25 times or a total of about 40,000 vertical feet of moguls. While I didn't ski it 25 times. I did ski it 6 or 7 in an hour, which is pretty darn tiring. The couple times I split off into the trees I was greeted with fresh powder, a rarity late in the day at a major ski area such as Heavenly.

Saturday brought me back to Squaw Valley once again. At this point powder days were 'getting old', which is definitely something I never thought I would say... There wasn't much open for the first quarter of the day. When KT-22 opened, the crowds congregated there. As the whole upper mountain stayed closed due to wind, KT was busy all day. My favorite runs for the day were off red dog ridge. There is a fun cliff at the end of the ridge to launch off. I must've done it 5 or 6 times.

After a partial day at Alpine Meadows on Sunday I headed off to Mammoth Lakes, CA. Fotunately, this drive was going to be an easy one with no snow to drive through.