22 Blue - Looking ahead to the New (aka Fuck Summer (aka Tahoe Thread))

[lepistoir]

It's not just the ski passes. Every trail head between from Truckee to KB along 267 was completely jammed like the toilet I just unclogged.

[jtran10]

your friendly wasatch JONG here. We're flying into reno wednesday night, doing the van buy thursday, and then will be skiing Friday and maybe Saturday.

Bearing in mind it's a holiday weekend should we stay in south lake or incline village/northstar to minimize drive hassles? If we do resort ski it would be at either northstar or heavenly, but if the touring is fun enough we'll tour 2 days.

[lepistoir]

We don't post all the specialty info on the internet for everybuddy to crowd up the backcountry even more. I'll PM you with some suggestions.

[TahoeJ]

Incline is probably a good central location for you given your plans- it will give you a bit more flexibility.

[gone2alpine]

I'm just going to throw out there that Northstar is about the worst choice in Tahoe right now. All of that traffic that TahoeJ showed in his pic was primarily for Northstar. While 89 was relatively clear early this morning, 267 was a parking lot from 80 to the NStar turnoff.

Plus...Nstar for your average visitor is remote parking, wait 30 for a bus, walk through village, wait 30 for the gondola, go to first lift and wait 30 minutes. If you have to pick up a pass or ticket in the village, add another 45 for that. At least the Heave has several different points of entry to reduce that cluster, and two of them allow you to skip the village.

Not my site, but not surprised that this site became a thing: https://northstarsucks.com

[Mr. Toad]

your friendly wasatch JONG here. We're flying into reno wednesday night, doing the van buy thursday, and then will be skiing Friday and maybe Saturday.

Bearing in mind it's a holiday weekend should we stay in south lake or incline village/northstar to minimize drive hassles? If we do resort ski it would be at either northstar or heavenly, but if the touring is fun enough we'll tour 2 days.

This is the most crowded I’ve seen in the resorts in the 16 years living here. Stay away from heave that weekend. Even during non-holiday weekends, parking fills by 9am and the traffic to and from is a shitshow. I’m gonna guess there’ll be corn in the bc by then. I would go where you’re in direct sunlight and can get a view of Emerald Bay.

[lepistoir]

Peace to friends and family of Rory Angelotta. Ride on, bro.

[J. Barron DeJong]

I'm just going to throw out there that Northstar is about the worst choice in Tahoe right now. All of that traffic that TahoeJ showed in his pic was primarily for Northstar. While 89 was relatively clear early this morning, 267 was a parking lot from 80 to the NStar turnoff.

Plus...Nstar for your average visitor is remote parking, wait 30 for a bus, walk through village, wait 30 for the gondola, go to first lift and wait 30 minutes. If you have to pick up a pass or ticket in the village, add another 45 for that. At least the Heave has several different points of entry to reduce that cluster, and two of them allow you to skip the village.

Not my site, but not surprised that this site became a thing: https://northstarsucks.com

Well… took me 1:45 to get to N* from Glenshire this morning, took the neighbor down the street 2:30 to get to Palisades, so….

ETA: waited under 5 minutes for a bus (I know it can be worse, but 30 minutes is in no way the norm). Hopped on Village Express chair with no line. Longest lift line was 14 minutes, and could always find a lift under 5 if I wanted.

[bobz]

Re Rory: It's particularly heartbreaking that he seems to have done an epic slog (presumably on resort gear) and damn near made it out; was within 1/2 mile of a neighborhood. We don't know where he (I'm assuming) accidentally went out of bounds, but given that his last lift tag-in would have dropped him off at the top of the resort, he would have gone a very considerable distance (probably along the mostly flat-ish, from there, route that the Tahoe-to-Truckee XC race follows; there's also an uphill section somewhere in there) in deep snow. Really sorry; RIP.

[mildbill.]

Plus...Nstar for your average visitor is remote parking, wait 30 for a bus, walk through village, wait 30 for the gondola, go to first lift and wait 30 minutes. If you have to pick up a pass or ticket in the village, add another 45 for that.

Skiing by Kafka. Avoid at all costs.

[gone2alpine]

Well… took me 1:45 to get to N* from Glenshire this morning, took the neighbor down the street 2:30 to get to Palisades, so….

None of those numbers mean anything without considering departure times...it's all about when you leave.

[TahoeJ]

I'm just going to throw out there that Northstar is about the worst choice in Tahoe right now. All of that traffic that TahoeJ showed in his pic was primarily for Northstar. While 89 was relatively clear early this morning, 267 was a parking lot from 80 to the NStar turnoff.

Plus...Nstar for your average visitor is remote parking, wait 30 for a bus, walk through village, wait 30 for the gondola, go to first lift and wait 30 minutes. If you have to pick up a pass or ticket in the village, add another 45 for that. At least the Heave has several different points of entry to reduce that cluster, and two of them allow you to skip the village.

Not my site, but not surprised that this site became a thing: https://northstarsucks.com

Actually no - it was a pretty good split between Northstar and Palisades. The right lane was backed up on 80 with people trying to get to 89 (DPR was also backed up with people taking the Donner turnoff where I took my photo) and then you could drive around the one backup on 80 to the next one with cars trying to exit on 267. An equal opportunity shit show all around.


(This is by CoffeeBar / Shell)

[J. Barron DeJong]

None of those numbers mean anything without considering departure times...it's all about when you leave.

True, to an extent. FYI, I parked at Northstar at 10:25. Don’t know the time of the neighbors trip.

But the real moral is that traffic sucks balls so far this year and if you want to avoid the shit show you need to leave the house early instead of sleeping in (which was my plan, but I failed).

[climberevan]

I've been riding bikes since it warmed dramatically and then rained, and this obs on SAC from today sums up why. I think it's particularly poetic. Corn season is just around the corner, though, so hope springs eternal.

"We toured up to Elephant's Back and returned via Elephant's Hump to Red Lake.
The main NE face of Elephant's Back was characterized by a solid ice crust covered by a dusting of new snow but only intermittently (see picture). The winds had blown the snow around so that there were patches of dust on crust and other patches of pure ice.
We skied off the ridge below the first main rock formation, but we did not ski all the way down to the trees due to larger ice patches on the next section down. We traversed north 100 yds and descended east to the trees.
Our plan was then to descend north off the peak just west of the Hump, but the slope there in the shade and trees consisted of breakable hard crust and surface hoar.
We went to the Hump, intending to ski off the E/SE face, but it was dominated by bushes, rocks, and wind-hardened sastrugi. We descended N/NE off the Hump and encountered light breakable crust with soft snow underneath at about boot penetration.

In conclusion, we mainly saw dust on crust or hard ice crust above treeline and breakable crust in the trees.

[Ottime]

your friendly wasatch JONG here. We're flying into reno wednesday night, doing the van buy thursday, and then will be skiing Friday and maybe Saturday.

Bearing in mind it's a holiday weekend should we stay in south lake or incline village/northstar to minimize drive hassles? If we do resort ski it would be at either northstar or heavenly, but if the touring is fun enough we'll tour 2 days.

If I were going to resort ski on an Epic pass this coming weekend, I would go to Kirkwood. It is generally quiet during black out periods because the tourist don't travel out that far an the BA mostly has Tahoe passes and are blacked out. From Reno it is fairly quick down 395 and over 88. Also plenty of good touring options with S then W aspects off the pass. N*, by comparison, will have about 50x the number of people and half the grade. And it has not warmed up as much at 7800' as it has at 6300'.

[Blaster]

Traffic sucks but the stoke is still out there

[MashedPotatoes]

hell yeah Blaster!

I was gonna resort ski this weekend but my kid tested positive. Honestly it feels like bullshit he has zero symptoms but we're hanging around the house for 5 days at least..

jtran10, Ottime has it right. If you don't wanna stand in line go to Kirkwood, especially on Saturdays.

northstar does suck but generally the mountain itself is well run IMO, (especially if you are used to the kfactor) so kinda surprising to see all those complaints. Some of that is just people should know better than to expect full service/great skiing experience during big storm cycles but alas..

[shakyknees]

I've been riding bikes since it warmed dramatically and then rained, and this obs on SAC from today sums up why. I think it's particularly poetic. Corn season is just around the corner, though, so hope springs eternal.


In conclusion, we mainly saw dust on crust or hard ice crust above treeline and breakable crust in the trees.

Whereas south faces are buffed and silky. Tough choice though with the all-time pavement conditions.

[powdork]

Traffic sucks but the stoke is still out there

Were you with Brennan? Looks like I saw the same location on his insta the other day.

[powdork]

your friendly wasatch JONG here. We're flying into reno wednesday night, doing the van buy thursday, and then will be skiing Friday and maybe Saturday.

Bearing in mind it's a holiday weekend should we stay in south lake or incline village/northstar to minimize drive hassles? If we do resort ski it would be at either northstar or heavenly, but if the touring is fun enough we'll tour 2 days.

stay in South Lake IMO, and the wester in South Lake the better. Without a storm traffic in town isn't bad except leaving to the west on Sundays. Not sure the story on your van but if it's a camper you're welcome to park in my driveway and use the facilities. Blue Lakes sno park is another option if that's the case. There are lots of good corn options a couple of which include the Emerald Bay view but you will want either crampons or ski crampons for the approach. There are other options however. If you're EPIC pass allows you to ski Kirkwood on Saturday that's what I would do for sure as far as crowds. Won't change the frozen tundra though.

[NakedShorts]

Thought it was better than expected at the Wood. If you found the right mix it was heavenly. That's how my 6 yr old described it. Sure was a nice day out. Clueless nooobs hitting the Wood on the regular and no 6er sightings means the quality of skier has changed though and people think it's cool to park at Caples pullouts and walk in. Don't do that or if you do pick something different for the day.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

A California judge has blocked a planned resort in Lake County, one of the most fire prone areas of the state (part of the resort property burned in 2020), saying that the guests and workers at the large development would overwhelm roads and endanger other county residents in the event of an evacuation.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/californ...ainstage_card2

This is the argument Sierra Watch and others have made for years about the Village at ?Palisades or whatever they're calling it now. No doubt the developers will appeal. Of course we already know that if there is a big fire in the Tahoe Basin people will burn to death in their cars. People got lucky with the Caldor Fire--there was plenty of warning--but that won't always be the case. (And a lot of people complained about having to evacuate too soon.)

Building a mega ski resort in Lake County is a dumb idea regardless of wildfire risk. Low elevation and meager snow pack most years.


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[TahoeBC]

Traffic could be worse, for example…

[Truckee Joe]

I can't wait for people to start playing golf again.


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[skysos]

Building a mega ski resort in Lake County is a dumb idea regardless of wildfire risk. Low elevation and meager snow pack most years.


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I was confused about this as well because I hadn't heard about another California ski resort proposal. It's just a wine-country housing development on about 1,500 acres. No mention of skiing.