Thread: TR: Dicks, Jacks, and Tallac (3/20/09)

Date: 3/20/09

Skiers: madturtle, AKbruin

Location: Desolation Wilderness

Route: Bayview Trailhead-->Maggie's clevage --> Dicks (via Dicks Lake) --> Jacks --> Tallac (via Half Moon Lake and Gilmore Lake) --> Spring Creek Road & 89 --> Bayview Trailhead (via kindhearted hitchhiker picker-uppers)

Timing: Bayview Trailhead: 6:45 a.m.; Dick's: 11:30 a.m.; Jacks: 1 p.m.; Tallac: 5 p.m.; Car: 6:30 p.m.

Distance and Vert: 12+ miles & 6000'+ vert (according to my topo software)

Good Photos: madturtle

py Photos: AKbruin

Far Superior Prior (Non-TGR) TRs: BCR\\\'s Trifecta, Mike\\\'s Guide to Jack\\\'s, and Dicks from Fallen Leaf.

(1) Topo of our route:



STAGE 1: DICKS PEAK

(2) Obligatory goofy trailhead photo.


(3) Looking back through Maggies at the big blue lake.


(4) Madturtle powers on with Jeanine's (?) in the background.


(5) AKbruin boots up the saddle in a stupid but utilitarian hat.



(6) AKbruin ready to ski off Dicks summit.


(7) Jacks in the foreground; Pyramid and Agazzis in the background.


(8) AKbruin loves Dicks.




(9) Madturtle totally gets off on Dicks.





STAGE 2: JACKS PEAK

(10) More skinning. (Jacks in the background.)


(11) Left to Right: Pyramid, Agazzis, Price. (This would also make another nice Desolation trifecta trip.)


(12) Dicks Peak.


(13) Angora and Echo on the left; Cracked Crag on the right.


(14) Madturtle.






(15) AKbruin.






(16) Jacks lower north-facing bowl. We descended the skier's left part of the bowl.


(17) Looking up from Half Moon Lake at the many, many options offered on the lower half of Jacks.

STAGE 3: TALLAC

(18) Extreme skinning!



(19) I will ski Cracked Crag at some point. (But I won't provide a photo because Picasa blows.)

(20) Hall of the Gods, looking sexy.


(21) The last skinning of the day.


(22) From once we came: Jacks in the center left; Dicks in the center right.


(23) Madturtle coming down the North Bowl of Tallac. Sadly, these were the best conditions we had on Tallac. We had wanted to hit the top of the Cross, but it had spent too long in the shade after a warm day and was literally rock hard.


(24) That was probably my best turn on Tallac.


(25) Madturtle drops into the (skier's) left arm of the Cross. The first two turns were sludge, the next 15 turns were boilerplate, and the last 60 turns were character-building breakable crust. Yep, that comes out to about 3000' vertical feet of contiguous survival turns. We probably should have gotten there a couple hours earlier at 3 p.m. to get decent snow.



(26) Catching a ride back to my ride. (Thanks benevolent Taco drivers!)



BONUS STAGE

After 3000 vertical feet of character-building snow down Tallac on Friday and half a day of in-bounds character-building snow at Kirkwood on Saturday (thank god we had the comp to keep us entertained), Ullr rewarded our well-developed characters with about 30" of light, dry, overnight snow and a closed Carson Spur on Sunday. I was generally too excited to take photos, but here are a couple that we managed to take on the last run of the day. Mind you, every run on Sunday was like this:

Dhelihiker


AKbruin

Hell of a day, and a trip report, right there. Good work.

I forgot how low madturtle gets in his tele stance. Looks good.

SUCCESS!!!! That is a helluva day AK and MT. Very nice work.

i'm only seeing the pics that have madturtle in them, so i guess i'm only seeing akbruin's shitty pics. i wanna see the good pics. i wanna, i wanna, i wanna!!
(yes, i have kids)
nevermind, they're showing up now.

Originally Posted by powdork

i'm only seeing the pics that have madturtle in them, so i guess i'm only seeing akbruin's shitty pics. i wanna see the good pics. i wanna, i wanna, i wanna!!
(yes, i have kids)
nevermind, they're showing up now.

Are they still showing? Stupid Picasa.

Edit: I honestly don't know what's going on. Sometimes I see them; sometimes I don't. Next time I'm using Shutterfly. Picasa blows.

Big impressive day.

Hopefully more of those pics show up.

Nice work.

Originally Posted by AKbruin

Are they still showing? Stupid Picasa.

Edit: I honestly don't know what's going on. Sometimes I see them; sometimes I don't. Next time I'm using Shutterfly. Picasa blows.

I always use Picassa and don't have a problem. Method:

1. When in the link toolbar on the right, make sure for "Selected Size" you have Large selected.

2. Also, make sure you select "Hide Album Link".

3. Then copy the entire coding from "Embedded Image"

4. Paste that coding between the img bracketed thingys you use.

5. Here is the important thing: you don't keep that entire coding from picassa. Within it, there is the actually link to the picture.

What I have found is that is the "true" link to the pic if you pull it from "Embedded Image". If you use the "Link" v. "Embedded Image", sometimes you get the problem you are getting.

Here is an example. This is what the entire picassa coding looks like from the Embedded Image part (note it would be longer if you didn't select "Hide Album Link"). I have highlighted red the part that you would actually keep between the img brackets. Everything else you delete:

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/JcLRInzjkixg__10Rqysog?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGQxtO3_ONC& feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_gA39gK_0wkQ/STL7khHAlAI/AAAAAAAAAC0/keFdOaKty1M/s800/IMG_1974.JPG" /></a>

Here is the example from above in use. Quote to see:

^^^or you could just use photobucket. Copy the link and your done. No extra steps, automatically resizes, simple (which is what I need.)

Oh, and great TR. I never skied Tallac, but did a winter ascent back in Vet school days.

No idea what the problem was.

Thanks for writing this up. Great skiing w/ ya this w/e

edited for brevity...

Nice work guys! Gotta love Deso!


Re the pic hosting, I'm still seeing question marks (mac) for a lot of the photos. While free is nice sometimes you get what you pay for (or don't pay for). Paid hosts are super cheap these days and much more reliable. Food for thought.

Originally Posted by bcrider

Re the pic hosting, I'm still seeing question marks (mac) for a lot of the photos. While free is nice sometimes you get what you pay for (or don't pay for). Paid hosts are super cheap these days and much more reliable. Food for thought.

yeah yeah yeah that's like raising your nose at free beer ,

are you just getting a couple red Xs or still half and half with basically all the pics of AKB not showing? Any difference between his OP and the stuff I quoted lower down?

thanks chris.

Alright, all the photos should be appearing now. I uploaded madturtle's photos into my own Picasa album and then replaced each link, which wasn't at all tedious.

Many thanks for the guidence given by all!

Oh sweet, an epic tour and a lesson in picasa photo posting. Good thing you can sit around at work all week to rest up.

Here's what I learned with picasa. I right click the photo, click properties, grab the link, but then the original photo is too large, so where the link says s912, I replace that with s800 so the photo fits onto the page. It's so incredibly easy, gosh!

[space reserved to copy and paste entire trip report here]







.

Damn Frank - i didn't realize that you guys had done *12* miles! That is some single day tour, mad props. Jack's looks fun - need to hit that up next!

Yeah... SUnday was way to good to stop to take pics. Looks like you got after it- good work...

nice work.

Thats a big day!! Im tired just thinking about it. Nice F-ing job. Jacks looks loike fun

Way to go after it; committed S.O.B's y'are.


Did Aesop have a moral to this fable of the Turtle and the Bear? Beyond, don't ever go touring with these dudes; they will break your legs off..

Glad you got some pow.

Dig it.

Lovin' the Tahoe bc TRs! Tough to beat a sunny day in Cali