THE OFFICIAL 20/21 TAHOE SKI & SNOWBOARD THREAD. PANDEMIC SCHMANDEMIC!

**MTT** · 02-25-2021, 11:39 AM

Originally Posted by nrob

Power out at squaw

Right now? It's a nice day with no wind. Do they run the lifts off the generators?

Last time I saw a power outage it was Mt. Rose. Had no effect on skiing just the roar of big engine when loading the lifts.

**Westcoaster** · 02-25-2021, 11:42 AM

Scratch that they are spinning lower mountain, not upper yet

**powdork** · 02-25-2021, 12:14 PM

power is reportedly back on as of 9:53

**LongShortLong** · 02-25-2021, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by Ottime

^^^^absolutely.

I think it was 14/15 where we barely got a 12” storm all winter and I skied endless ghost town powder days of 8” and no lift delays. Fucking brilliant.

Yep. Snow cover was minimal at 7800 that year. The deep base tried to start in Dec, then it never dumped again for months. Think it was Feb or Mar before there was enough base at the base condos it didn't melt between storms. Wall entrance was sketchy all season.

**Wobby** · 02-25-2021, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by meter-man

Now THAT is some STOAK!! I'm feeling it - thanks bud

Appreciate it! Means a lot coming from you.

Rock Garden (?) looking sick! Man I miss Squaw, gotta get back on the Ikon Pass train next year. Mt Rose is cool, but just not quite the same.

**Wobby** · 02-25-2021, 02:35 PM

Originally Posted by Ottime

I think it was 14/15 where we barely got a 12” storm all winter and I skied endless ghost town powder days of 8” and no lift delays. Fucking brilliant.

You sure that wasn't 15/16, the first year after the drought? Seemed like it was 1 foot dumps 1x a week all year, and damn it was soooo good. Lifts never stopped, and there was always fresh.

(or maybe it just felt amazing after the popcorn fart that was the previous 4 years...)

**TahoeJ** · 02-25-2021, 02:52 PM

^^ Agreed. I thought that was a great year. Kind of under the radar. Had so many good days out there.

**gone2alpine** · 02-25-2021, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by MTT

Right now? It's a nice day with no wind. Do they run the lifts off the generators?

Last time I saw a power outage it was Mt. Rose. Had no effect on skiing just the roar of big engine when loading the lifts.

They ran AM lifts on diesel backup just long enough to get people off. Usually operating lifts with public on the diesel backup is not a great idea because if the diesel fails, then you need to rope evac. The power came back on today before anyone had to make a decision. Not all lifts came online immediately because the "fast fix" was to get a secondary line energized, which didn't have capacity to handle all needs. All lifts reopened at AM around 1130.

**nrob** · 02-25-2021, 08:43 PM

I thought Squaw did pretty good job of getting whole mountain going again after power outage. Silvy was great fun with my daughter. 3 laps before line started to build. Won't last long though without more snow.

**Ottime** · 02-25-2021, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by Wobby

You sure that wasn't 15/16, the first year after the drought? Seemed like it was 1 foot dumps 1x a week all year, and damn it was soooo good. Lifts never stopped, and there was always fresh.

(or maybe it just felt amazing after the popcorn fart that was the previous 4 years...)

That might be correct.

From what LSL said, must have been. I was hucking moderate plus things all over the mountain that year. It was one of the years my kid was in pre school every other day. . We would drive up at lunch and sled that evening, and ski the next day. We bought a 10 pack of lessens and used 8 of them mid week. He usually ended up with private or one other kid in his class and I got a mini powder day each of those days. I don’t recall many one foot storms but a ton in the 6-10” range. And one dust on crust day that ended up being quite good as well.

Roads were easy, no real lift delays and no people. Good times.

**old goat** · 02-25-2021, 11:40 PM

Sugar Bowl was running Lincoln and a couple of other lifts on diesel for a while. Upper part of Lincoln would be a bad place to do a rope evac--most people would need to be roped down the cliffs and steeps under the chair. The lift went down while I was on it for maybe 10 minutes--then started up with electric power restored.
Is the auxiliary diesel a motor that turns the bullwheel directly or a generator that powers the electric motor? And is it always diesel--I didn't smell diesel, might it use some other fuel?

(near my house there's a sewage pumping station. when the power goes out if I can hear the auxiliary diesel pump I know the power is out in the whole neighborhood at least. The outage today affected all of Truckee. And maybe this should go in the Jesus Hercules Christ thread, but my wife loves lamps and all kinds of decorative lighting--inside and out--and she has it all on timers. Guess who has to reset all the timers when the power goes out for any length of time--and reboot the modem, the wireless router, and the microcell. The horrors of modern life--such a struggle.)

**Shred Baron** · 02-26-2021, 08:30 AM

Originally Posted by gone2alpine

They ran AM lifts on diesel backup just long enough to get people off. Usually operating lifts with public on the diesel backup is not a great idea because if the diesel fails, then you need to rope evac.

That’s not true, or mostly not true. Lifts will always have an evacuation drive be it a diesel or gas motor or similar some older models of lifts could be hooked up to the hydraulics of a snowcat for an evac. By code this can ONLY be used to clear the line (ok if it’s small enough that the ski are can prove they can rope evac in some super minimal time they can use it as an APU but we’re talking Belmont at squaw small). Many lifts have an APU (auxiliary power unit). This can be a number of things, internal combustion motor (or multiple motors) driving the gearbox that turns the bull wheel, a backup generator that runs the electric drive. These can be used to run the lift indefinitely to public. There’s all sorts of code on how large the fuel tank has to be, speeds bla bla bla. Lifts are not required to have an APU, so ski areas may opt out if they do t want to fork over the extra money, if they don’t think it’s a lift they’ll run without the electric drive.

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**irratator** · 02-26-2021, 09:15 AM

^^^ Good info, Thanx

**old goat** · 02-26-2021, 11:08 AM

After hearing my kid describe how they do rope evac at Squaw I'm prepared to wait a long time for them to get the lift running. (He trained on Red Dog before there was any snow on the ground, which sounds like a lot of fun in and of itself.)
I was riding Summit at AM one time in some very cold, very windy, cloudy weather. The lift stopped while my chair was just below the last rise. It was down for a good 30 minutes and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, until the lift started, we came over the rise, and saw the mechanic with a very large wrench on top of the lift pole working--then I didn't feel so sorry for myself.

**powdork** · 02-26-2021, 11:19 AM

Plus at that point you had born again first chair.

**jorion** · 02-26-2021, 01:23 PM

Is there coverage high up on south faces these days? If so, is it getting soft when not windy? Trying to plan this kind of tour sucks when you’re not local.

**powdork** · 02-26-2021, 01:27 PM

yess - although i've been more on ese at not quite as high so far with good results

**jorion** · 02-26-2021, 01:55 PM

Sweet, thanks PD. Think I’ll take a long walk on Sunday.

**Paul Blart** · 02-26-2021, 03:25 PM

South face of Castle Peak was firm and not so fun today. Wind was whippin pretty good and kept things from getting soft above tree line. Found some softer turns down low in the trees. Dropped at 12:15.

**shakyknees** · 02-26-2021, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by jorion

Is there coverage high up on south faces these days? If so, is it getting soft when not windy? Trying to plan this kind of tour sucks when you’re not local.

I skied a SSE aspect about 12:30 today in the Luther Pass area; coverage was good, and softening did occur, but surprisingly the melt-freeze crust wasn't supportive. Manky in the sun and breakable crust in the shade. Seems like the daytime melt hasn't been quite sufficient to get us to good spring conditions.

**old goat** · 02-26-2021, 06:03 PM

Johnson Canyon parking now being plowed (Sunrise Bowl, etc)
https://www.truckeedonnerlandtrust.o...ter-recreation

**MashedPotatoes** · 02-26-2021, 06:11 PM

anyone ski Kirkwood lately? Will I be able to find soft turns on Sunday or is it pretty scratchy everywhere?

**ShadeGardener** · 02-26-2021, 06:29 PM

MashedPotatoes- met you at Heavenly recently. KW is crunchy. Not softening up really. Doubt there will be soft snow Sunday. Late yesterday areas that usually retain soft snow were even crunchy. Not as bad as the sheer ice and ball bearings recently. But not soft. Groomer skiing.

**jcreight** · 02-26-2021, 07:26 PM

KW had shiny and crunchy snow today. I stayed on piste ‘cuz it was my first day this season

**Mr. Toad** · 02-26-2021, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by jorion

Is there coverage high up on south faces these days? If so, is it getting soft when not windy? Trying to plan this kind of tour sucks when you’re not local.

Coverage was thin but we could ski from top to bottom on snow. (Tuesday and Thursday). weekend might be a different story. There was real corn below the steep section.