TR: Heavenly Touch of the GSA, or Winter's April Fool of Tahoe (3/31 & 4/1/2012)

[SchralphMacchio]

Date: March 31 & April 1, 2012

Location: Temple of the GSA, Waspurkwood

Weather: WINTER STORM!!!


Conditions: 12 to 20 inches of chest to overhead blowwwwwer


Disclaimer: None! Crack a beer and enjoy!

GSA Worshippers: powdork, TahoeBC, Schralph, MapleLeafGillies, Ottime, MashedPotatoes

Photos: Schralph, Ottime, TahoeBC, MapleLeafGillies

Music: Joanna Newsom - Sprout the Bean

Heavenly Touch of the GSA, or Winter's April Fool of Tahoe (March 31 - April 1, Lake Tahoe, CA)



March 31. Morning. Cold. No new snow in two weeks. Must get out of bed and train hard.
Harness and proper safety gear, check.
Forward and rear-mount HD video cameras, double-check.
Stancing, triple-check.

Time to train for Alaska.





After a day of hard training at Vail's Heavenly Lake Tahoe Resort, the sprit of the GSA blessed Schralph's prayers and touched Lake Tahoe with divine spirit. Snow fell from the heavens instantly, and conditions were magically transformed from abrasive to ethereal. In the name of the GSA, the Harness, and the Holy GoPros, we praise you! 4:15 PM and it was time to test out the training with three other disciples.





The training was great success because, in a matter of hours, we went from Training for Alaska to ... Alaska!





6 PM, and Powdork got deep ...





Schralph got deeper ...





MapleLeafGillies bathed his shoulders in snow ...





TahoeBC pushed it up to neck-deep ...





And then powdork sang the solo to the finishing song of praise at 6:30 PM.





Powdork's POV






TahoeBC's face says it all - Praise GSA!





The next morning, April 1, Schralph and the Canadian recruited Ottime for sunrise prayers to the Almighty.





Ottime did not have his beacon or harness, and his shovel was not strapped to the outside of his pack. Make fun of stancing? Try stancing in frozen Dukes on the skintrack! Nonetheless, Schralph the Blessed prayed on behalf of the infidel, and summoned the soft breath of the GSA through his Subaru's tiny vents.





Relief! The Grace of the GSA is such to embrace former non-believers, as the bindings were unbound, and the Almighty GSA sprinkled down unicorn tears softly over everyone's faces.





The descent was like floating in the dreams of one's deepest prayers.





Schralph had never felt touched by such divine love before, with gentle wisps of sensation flowing from his toes up to his shoulders with every genuflection.





MapleLeafGillies knelt down and was graced with the same wave of extraordinary sensation.





Ottime was still new to GSA prayer, laying backwards instead of kneeling forwards.





Gillies showed him the way, heading to the grove to find the holy light of the GSA.




His words were clear, "Go that way, really fast, and if something gets in your way, turn."





Schralph reached out to embrace the GSA.





Ottime was starting to understand, and he commited an act of faith and surrender.





With confidence and faith imbued, Schralph learned that Once is Not Enough when it comes to praising the GSA (no pictures were taken). He tried to spread the good word to all of the non-believers in the resort lines ...





... but the infidels had become sinful, and they were smitten by complete shutdown of all of the chairlifts. So the disciples returned to the Holy Land to pray some more, and found that the GSA still very much loved them.





The group did show the Light to MashedPotatoes, and he embraced the spirit of the GSA.





Despite the smiting of the infidels, His love was still very deep for those who praised Him, now, and always in the future.





In the name of the GSA, the Harness, and the Holy GoPros,
GSA bless you,
GSA bless you all!!!

[powdork]

well done

[powtario]

Hey that was a real beaut eh!

[_Aaron_]

And who said it never snowed in Tahoe this year?

Keep em' coming SM.

[N1CK.]

Awesome! Thanks for the morning stoke.

This one is a real banger ....


Believe.

[TahoeBC]

Nicely done TR, funny thing is I'm not sure any one at Heavenly even looked twice at you, dual whippets and all!

Saturday had to be one of the strangest days, from down right freighting boiler plate that was hard to catch an edge on , to corn, then while sucking down IPA's in the parking lot the temp's suddenly dropped, it clouded up and started dumping. A hot tub, beer and a nap later, we are on a skin track about to ski some of the lightest over the shoulder blower of the season. Maybe there is something with this GSA thing, Hmmmmm….

[Skirotica]

My, fucking, GSA was that good. Well done indeed. That's the second best package of spectacular powder stoke I've seen (the bachelor party still takes the cake because gun). Many good shots all rolled into one. What a trip.

[LeeLau]

bravo-well written

[ACH]

Yeah man!



The machete is a nice touch.

[Ottime]

^^^what I can't believe is that is the morning of the same day I rolled into KW at 1:30 to pure dumpage, that turned to pure deep by 4:30. Glad I set the skin track for the morning festivities. Even if it ended up under another foot of blower.

Good work here Schralph.

[highanxiety]

[QUOTE=SchralphMacchio;3607718]Date: March 31 & April 1, 2012


His words were clear, "Go that way, really fast, and if something gets in your way, turn."




Awesome shots! dig this one and the quote above, I am going to have to use that....lol

[MashedPotatoes]

hail the mighty GSA for he has bestowed his GoPro blessings and benedictions upon this TR; all shall love him and despair.

[supermodel159]

Looks like fun. Are those top few ski shots frame grabs? Post the video.

[MashedPotatoes]

Awesome shots! dig this one and the quote above, I am going to have to use that....lol

you might want to check out a certain ski movie from the 80's featuring John Cusack and Van Halen hamburgers.

[DeathVan]

That was one Heavenly Hajj !

[whyturn]

Uh, yeah...

[TahoeJ]

Sweet GSA stoke.

[skier666]

Yep....this one is the winner. Nicely done.

[pbourdon]

Great writeup, and the music was a perfect accouterment to the photos. Well done sir. The GSA will surely reward you in the seasons to come.

[MapleLeafGillies]

Ya, what an unreal weekend. Lets pray the GSA spirit returns soon!

[SchralphMacchio]

Are those top few ski shots frame grabs? Post the video.

No frame grabs ... just various cameras that don't like taking photos @ISO800/1600, in low light at 6:30 PM, during a dark storm, while it's super cold out and nuking .... but I did just add in powdork's POV from Saturday evening's ride partway down the TR!

the bachelor party still takes the cake because gun

What bachelor party? Did I miss an epic TR? Because we had a potato gun at a bachelor party a month ago, but I'm pretty sure I didn't post that stoke here. Linky please!

The machete is a nice touch.

That is a not a ma-che-tay ... that is a vital piece of snow safety gear needed in Alaska.


This is a ma-che-tay ...

[LightRanger]

Killer shots buddy. Everything below the shot of you defrosting Chad's Dukes over your vents is especially awesome.

[LightRanger]

BTW, how did they get that frozen before you even started skinning? Did somebody pull a rookie move and leave them out to get iced over?

[Ottime]

Left them in the car overnight, after skinning and skiing the evening session on the Danberg low angle line. Too tired to haul them into the house. I think they must have froze up on the ski down, and solidified overnight. I've never had them freeze up like that, even when hanging in the car overnight.

[carvedog]

Awesome! Thanks for the morning stoke.

This one is a real banger ....


Believe.

This caught my eye too, amongst the many great shots. well done.