Thread: 11/12 Tahoe Weather, Conditions, Stoke, and What's Up Thread... IT'S BAAAAAAAACK!!!

I officially start my term as "race team dad" this weekend. They're letting Owen start early.

Question for TheDad and others in the know: if I register him with USSA, can he race anywhere? Can I haul him to races not in our section, without his team and just enter him in races?

edit - after looking at USSA / Far West website, I'm not even sure where he fits or if they'll even let him compete - he's 5 years old, and J6 is for 6-8 year old's - most of what I see is for J5 and older - are there J6 races outside of the Central Series? (DR, BV, China Peak and Badger Pass) - can he race J5? I'm told by coaches he'd hold his own against kids twice his age.

I want to give him an opportunity to compete, and we might postpone/cancel races if we don't get more snow.

I was considering contacting Bode and seeing if I can get him on Team America.

Sorry, TM -- my kids are all doing Tahoe League, not Far West, so I don't know. onehotchili is probably the best source.

copy that

Originally Posted by gimpy

1-2" was 4-6" in the lee. didnt want to make all the new snow slide out on the melt-freeze crust on steeper slopes so ima see if it bonded better in the next couple days. had a great run though as the new snow fell on more of a soft layer then a rock hard one cept in a few spots. tomorrow will be good i bet and today some of the sunbaked east aspects were the most consistent. i guess just be thankful for what we got and the runnels are gone. since we aint getting shit for the next couple weeks, keep in mind actions that might make certain lines last a bit w/ the new snow. just sayin is all. i predict good porn skiin tomorrow later the sun has softened up the east.

Like. We need this snow to last. Let it bond. I will do my part and agree not to ski at all until Saturday.

Originally Posted by telemike

I was considering contacting Bode and seeing if I can get him on Team America.

Hell, he should just ask LV out on a date. Little ripper will score. That is awesome, BTW. I love how dude has his hands up in every picture. Now, if I could only get my god son to keep his hands up. He is starting to get some scary park steeze.

LV is old news - he's already got a couple of babes on the race team he's hanging out with - last weekend at the informal training session he had an eight year old holding his hand helping him onto the lift, then he was assisting her down a tough bit of snow

maybe its just me and the fact that i sucked, or i was doing it on icy ruts in vermont, but ski racing took the fun out of skiing for me and i pretty much gave it up till i moved west. while it does give yer kid skills, i think its all about fun at that age. i know kirkwood has a junior freeride team n i wish they had that stuff when i was a tike. jus sayin.

Oh my god, it's come down to preserving and farming the 2 inch's of snow we got which was what like the 3 biggest storm of the season. Fuck this season is Fucked up.

Telemike
My 12,10&8 year olds race USSA with Kirkwood. This is my 8 year olds first year of USSA racing - it is more of a convenience thing for us, the the kids go to one race venue instead of the Tahoe League/USSA split.
North Section allows younger kids in the lowest race (J5) but the youngest I can remember seeing is about 7. I think Central runs the J5/6 race as a single event and splits out the results. For my little girl we just look at time off the winner, how she faired against the other "J6" kids and how many big kids she beats!
You can go to any Far West races - North, Central or South. I also looked at registering the youngest as an independent to save a few bucks. This is possible just contact Lucy at FW. The only caveat that I found was that someone has to represent the racer at the team Captains meeting - usually 5p Friday before the race - or they will pull the racer. You can do this but it just adds a little more hassle.
PM me if you want to talk or need more info.

Originally Posted by gimpy

maybe its just me and the fact that i sucked, or i was doing it on icy ruts in vermont, but ski racing took the fun out of skiing for me and i pretty much gave it up till i moved west. while it does give yer kid skills, i think its all about fun at that age. i know kirkwood has a junior freeride team n i wish they had that stuff when i was a tike. jus sayin.

I'd say that has more to due with a crappy program. Ski racing can and should be fun, but the only way that happens is if the program is focused on improving skiers relative to where they start, rather than producing the next Olympic champion. It's not the sport that kills desire, but the approach to the sport. A freeride team could be just as awful if run by the wrong people.

As someone like you who burned out on ski racing in my youth, but came back to it 25 years later in a much mellower format ( NASTAR), what I realized was that I really enjoyed ski racing when I was competing mostly against myself, but hated it when the only goal was competing against others.

thanks for any and all help and advice - we are not pushing him to race at all - all last season when he was in the Kid's Club lessons he talked about racing - we (mom, dad, coaches, etc) think he's ready to skip Devo and go right onto the race team - I never raced, my wife did - at this point, all we really care about is that he has fun, develops skills, and has a group of supervised monkeys he can ski around with while mom and I ski or I work - but I also want to give him a chance to race, since he seems to be so into it and he's good - I don't mind some extra hassle to help him have fun

Lou - I'll drop you a pm - thanks

Originally Posted by bbense

I'd say that has more to due with a crappy program. Ski racing can and should be fun, but the only way that happens is if the program is focused on improving skiers relative to where they start, rather than producing the next Olympic champion. It's not the sport that kills desire, but the approach to the sport. A freeride team could be just as awful if run by the wrong people.

QFT.....

Originally Posted by TahoeBC

Oh my god, it's come down to preserving and farming the 2 inch's of snow we got which was what like the 3 biggest storm of the season. Fuck this season is Fucked up.

Dude. Didn't you hear right? It was 6" in spots!

Seriously though, it could be worse. The way I look at it, we were lucky to get what we did from the last storm. Our pack is well bound, and with its thickness and the warm days, it is doubtful we will get a PWL, like nearly everyone else has. I'm healthy and able to ski. Oh, and this has been a fairly epic winter for surf. Still, I rather ski. And have confidence it will still come. And after last year, I know we got twice what we deserved, so the inverse will happen as well.

If you can't have fun while skiing ice, rock and 2" of pow pow, talk with Dooks. He'll set you straight.

The Tuesday night 'dump' still skied pretty good this morning on the North and Northeast aspects of Jakes. And the usual beauty of a sunrise from that mountain of course. Gimpy's going to hit it right by skiing around 10:00 instead of 7:30. Should be primo porn conditions in the sun by that time. If nothing else the corn fields have been replenished and things are pretty smooth once again. Still very sporty getting in and out of the approaches (crusty low tide conditions).

AM was fun yesterday. No sign of the usual crew. I guess they heard that KT was open...?
Surprised at the snow. Chains? Seriously? On, then off!!

Dust on crust but enough to make a difference.
Made some fresh tracks here and there. Got beat up some places by the underlying ruts, but also got to open it up into big-ass turns!

Top of Seldom Slides was only good for a couple of hits before it got down to ice, but the lower part stayed good.
They were blowing snow on Scotts.
Had the most fun heading across Alpine Bowl and traversing towards Counterwieght, etc. Only saw a couple of other skiers there.
High Yellow(?) was looking lovely, and in need of some tracks.

so one day it was corn the next day 4 inches of pow....tee shirt to puffy. Ill take it.

telemike -

next time you're in town, i'd love to hook up and make turns with you and Owen... sounds like his ripping. as far my personal thoughts on starting him racing at 5 (and this is with my USSA coaching hat on), just let him ski for now in all conditions and have fun. if he *is* ripping like he is, there is plenty of time for him to figure out the tactical part of skiing gates. if he has the right technical athletic foundation down, he'll be just fine. J6 is about as young as i've seen kids race, and about as young as i think they should start. so next year, get with a team and get to races. if possible, you want him to be in the North Series. the Central and South series simply don't have that many kids. he can be a big fish in a little pond, but ultimately he'll excel in races with larger fields.

on a side note, the SBST Devo team has mostly 7-9 y/o on it who race in the recreational Tahoe League series. they have had an opportunity to train gates only ONCE this season (that was mid-week on a Friday, so actually most kids from out of the area did NOT train). the kids that are fast are still winning the races... beating kids that are training lots of gates (which i know from talking to the other coaches). the SBST kids are relying on strong technique and skiing foundation vs tactically knowing the optimal "line" through the course. once the kids start *really* training gates, it then becomes more about working on tactics and then merely honing technique.

personally, we kept our older daughter who is 10 now almost 11, out of the more competitive Far West races until this year. she literally has 2 weekends of Far West races under her belt and has a 15, 16, and a pair of 25 place finshes under her belt in fields of ~75 girls. she is not far off from being able to consistently get some top 10 results. anyhow, my point is that some may say that she is "late to the game", but i have personally seen way too many GREAT ski racers burn out way too young.

if you want, PM me and we can take it off line. but for now, keep Owen skiing everything he can and becoming an overall great athlete. that will benefit him much further than chasing stix at this point.

powderdawg is in his happy place (i would be too if i didn't worry so much)




dog tired

A buddy & I are looking to hit up shasta from the bay this weekend, PM if interested.

Originally Posted by dima

A buddy & I are looking to hit up shasta from the bay this weekend, PM if interested.

Be careful, my dad's up there right now and things are thin.

Cinders & me (and the BayAreaSkiBus) plan to be at Kirkwood on Saturday, and then we're going to give Heavenly another chance on Sunday.
We hope to see you there, and have you show us your secret spots...(no not that kind)

We were planning on staying over in S.Lake on Sat Night, but that fell through. No worries.
(Unless there are any S.Lake Maggots with lots of room, or some suggestions??)

Just got an email from SnowBomb/Liftopia touting cheap KW tix for S/bowl Sunday.
Sign up for the discount coupon. Sorry, don't have the link/code. I deleted the email already...

Originally Posted by onehotchili

telemike -

next time you're in town, i'd love to hook up and make turns with you and Owen... sounds like his ripping. as far my personal thoughts on starting him racing at 5 (and this is with my USSA coaching hat on), just let him ski for now in all conditions and have fun. if he *is* ripping like he is, there is plenty of time for him to figure out the tactical part of skiing gates. if he has the right technical athletic foundation down, he'll be just fine. J6 is about as young as i've seen kids race, and about as young as i think they should start. so next year, get with a team and get to races. if possible, you want him to be in the North Series. the Central and South series simply don't have that many kids. he can be a big fish in a little pond, but ultimately he'll excel in races with larger fields.

on a side note, the SBST Devo team has mostly 7-9 y/o on it who race in the recreational Tahoe League series. they have had an opportunity to train gates only ONCE this season (that was mid-week on a Friday, so actually most kids from out of the area did NOT train). the kids that are fast are still winning the races... beating kids that are training lots of gates (which i know from talking to the other coaches). the SBST kids are relying on strong technique and skiing foundation vs tactically knowing the optimal "line" through the course. once the kids start *really* training gates, it then becomes more about working on tactics and then merely honing technique.

personally, we kept our older daughter who is 10 now almost 11, out of the more competitive Far West races until this year. she literally has 2 weekends of Far West races under her belt and has a 15, 16, and a pair of 25 place finshes under her belt in fields of ~75 girls. she is not far off from being able to consistently get some top 10 results. anyhow, my point is that some may say that she is "late to the game", but i have personally seen way too many GREAT ski racers burn out way too young.

if you want, PM me and we can take it off line. but for now, keep Owen skiing everything he can and becoming an overall great athlete. that will benefit him much further than chasing stix at this point.

thanks for that - believe me, we are not pushing him - we couldn't keep him away from the race team if we tried - he'd be bummed to not compete at least once or twice this season - our approach (as parents) has been to let him try racing - if it doesn't work out, he can do Devo - if that doesn't work out, he can do Kid's Club - we are our own free-ride team

Originally Posted by snapt

Be careful, my dad's up there right now and things are thin.

hmmmmm. i was under the impression there is lots of snow on shasta. there sure was in november and they have been more in the pnw flow since. good to hear it may not be as i think.

everything in the sun crusted last night. good pow to be had in the lee of wind depot gullies. corn is now there yet in da cp

Originally Posted by telemike

thanks for that - believe me, we are not pushing him - we couldn't keep him away from the race team if we tried - he'd be bummed to not compete at least once or twice this season - our approach (as parents) has been to let him try racing - if it doesn't work out, he can do Devo - if that doesn't work out, he can do Kid's Club - we are our own free-ride team

got it.... if he wants to race, save your $$$ and skip Far West/USSA.

you might check out the Kinder Cup Races at Heavenly: http://tahoesouth.com/events/details...ountain_resort

There 2 more scheduled and that can give him a "taste" for racing at $20/race. they are super fun and most local race kids got their first race starts there including both my daughters. and typically there are always a couple other pretty fast kids there too.

as a parent, i have definitely steered my daughters toward racing. once they get a little older they can choose something else like free ride, telemark or whatever. but for now, i like what racing (and all the free skiing drills) is doing for their overall skiing. so far i can still keep up so that's good too .

Originally Posted by gimpy

hmmmmm. i was under the impression there is lots of snow on shasta. there sure was in november and they have been more in the pnw flow since. good to hear it may not be as i think.

everything in the sun crusted last night. good pow to be had in the lee of wind depot gullies. corn is now there yet in da cp

the word i got was everything you skied in november got blown off by the east wind event that hammered here as well. i would have thought they did well with the storm that hit us 2 weeks ago and got a little something out of tuesday's weakness.

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girl = TGR Tahoe maggots

dog =La Nina