Posted by Big Al on December 31, 2009 under The Weekly Deal | 
Have you ever been to one of those rave parties that takes over a whole building, each floor offering a different vibe, DJ and crowd? Me neither. But from the stories that come out of those joints, they actually sound like the skiing at Squaw lately.
Jamie Blair getting it done on an upper floor. The tunes: Granite Trance. Photo by Nicole Blair
This was another incredible week. Great skiing led up to a Tuesday night storm that had enough snow and wind for the ‘You Shoulda Been Here Yesterday’ folks to heat up their cel texts to all the poor wretches who weren’t lucky enough to be here on Wednesday. Squaw only claimed 8-12″ but people on the hill were calling it more like 14-16″. Thursday, New Year’s Eve Day, was another treat as Ski Corp was able to get just about all lifts spinning despite fairly high winds – it was also the opening of Granite Chief since the storm. December snows totaled 127″ making this the snowiest December in 8 years.
And what about the Rave? When the mountain is skiing this well each chair is like its own floor of an oversized party. On the 31st, I shared one on Granite with a couple guys who were all fired up. Remember: it was untouched, relatively cold snow which had opened just a couple hours before. These guys needed to leave Granite so they could bang out laps on Headwall because it, too, was skiing so well even though its fresh pow got schralped the day before. Next chair I heard someone say they had to get to KT because Chute 75 was so smooth (it had been open since yesterday’s opening bell). On the next ride a happy couple told me they came straight to Granite when it opened and were planning on staying there all day.
Nicole Blair (better half of Jamie from photo above) getting funky below The Attic. Photo by Jamie.
THEORIES ON NEW YEAR’S & SKIING THE NEXT DAY
Years ago on NYE while skiing at some other resort in Tahoe I rode a chair with a guy who said he annually didn’t party on that night because he liked to start each new year fresh. And yesterday on a Headwall chair an instructor was asked by his lesson what his plans were for the big night. He replied, “There’s an old saying around here: ‘if you want to fly with the eagles you can’t hoot with the owls and become a turkey.’” So even though they agree with each other, I have to say that I think this approach is a bit lame. From my ‘Sophomore Years’ of living in Tahoe we developed our own saying: “Start Strong, Finish Strong!” Well, whatever you decided to do on NYE 2010 I hope you were able to get out on the hill the next day. Either way, Happy New Year from Big Al’s Blog!
Check out Squaw’s full list of upcoming events, including the Olympic Heritage Celebration which is just around the corner…
Posted by Big Al on December 20, 2009 under The Weekly Deal |
Last week was the one that literally opened everything up. That storm laid down a deep matt and covered those hidden surprises which made you leave your best skis at home. Now we’ve got a good base with almost the entire mountain open. I’ve heard more than a few people say they’ve never seen this much terrain open before Christmas. We had KT on Monday and then Headwall, Granite (including the Peak) and Solitude. Then we were treated to some memorabilia: Olympic Lady, Newport and Mainline into the weekend then on Sunday, Cornice II was spinning. I rode them all and if the mood strikes I recommend you do the same. It’s fun because you’ll be on these once-vital lifts which now have high-speed four and six packs going over them. It’s a good mountain tour at close range. Plus I happened to find the best snow under Newport, shhh….
Mainline Pocket on 12/20/09, still untouched
For those who were here the whole time, like the college kids home for the holidays and hitchhiking all over town, it was one those powder weeks that happens when weather or conditions make the mountain open piecemeal. I love this. Don’t get me wrong – I like the shotgun starts as much as anyone. The instant festival, when everything is open by 10 or 11, is an incredible thing to be a part of. But it’s also amazing when there’s something new opening every day with stable, untouched snow. The mountain is so big that getting a chair-opening treat in the morning can be followed by an entire day of poking around and finding your favorite snow.
Newport - the ultimate 60th birthday chair
Since it’s the beginning of the season and the ski industry has once-again redefined itself, you might want to think about a new pair of boards. There are some really interesting shapes out there – to me the best are the ones with normal camber for most of the ski then a huge rockered tip. Motivation to learn the new rides for me was easy because I was definitely buying a pair this year. I even got to the point of swinging into Granite Chief to get fired up before hitting the gym.
Gold Coast Demo Center, and some formerly-impossible boards for the public to demo
The way to do it is to go to the Gold Coast Demo Center when you get serious about buying. They have the most unbelievable selection of skis: 56 models, nine brands and 20 women-specific skis. I had been looking at ski shop walls for the last month and there is stuff in the Squaw Demo Center that I had never seen before – there was even a ski that everyone in the shops was talking about but none of them had. And for a little dough all of these skis are yours…for a day. You can get onto a pair of boards, ride Gold Coast, ski down and be back in the shop picking another pair in under 15 minutes. If you like the ones you’re on, just roll past Gold Coast to Siberia and test them on a steeper, more mountain-y (!) area. The other bonus of a demo center on the snow is that the folks working there know every ski better than anyone in any shop. These guys have skied on everything in the fleet (hopefully, for their sake!). Manager Roy Hage has been working in shops since 1986 so he knows his way around a binding. He’s also really good at asking questions to help you pick the next one. I found my Ultimate Ski there – you probably can, too….
Employees Roy Hage and Adrienne Benson handle the goods
UPCOMING:
Do you like Torchlight Parades? Me too…
Check out Squaw’s incredibly huge list of Holiday Events.
Dec 26th from 4pm – 7pm, test the best wine you’ve ever had at Uncorked with Canihan Family Cellars. I don’t know too much about grapes but these are truly the best I’ve ever had. Anyhoo.
Also on Dec 26th is Jubbing for Jacksons – I don’t know what it is but I like the name of it
Next Wednesday, 12/29, there’s a fundraiser for Granite Chief’s Scholarship Fund which helps kids who are big on skills but low on bills.
Two Flicks on one Night, poster courtesy Granite Chief Ski & Mountain Shop
© 2009 Alex West, all copy and photos
Posted by Big Al on December 14, 2009 under The Weekly Deal |
She’s open!! It happened mid-morning today and as you might know, it was awesome. The day started with catskiing-esque turns on Shirley and Gold Coast. Terrain features (no, you jubbers, not those ones) from natural mountains make for a lot of fun. One of the best things about riding Squaw early in the year is that you get to watch the mountain change as it goes through the season and Shirley is one of those fun places to see it. Two spots stand out: 1) you can ski the “Extreme Chutes” (where they always have steeps camps) very early-season; very late-season it’s a bit of a (buzz) testing ground for folks kickin’ it at the High Camp pool; 2) the main rock in the middle of the lower Funnel is a great snow meter and right now it looks like it’s taking a deep breath.
KT about to see its first tracks of the winter, 12/14/09. That's the first chair cresting the Fingers.
So: why KT-2? Well because that’s about how many turns you needed to get to the bottom today. ”Hey Al, those are heli turns up there!” someone shouted at me in the KT line. ‘What does that guy know?’ I thought to myself. Oh wait, he might have an idea – it was Points North Heli owner Kevin Quinn. The snow was deep but really fast. It has that almost-wind-buff density going right now so it’s definitely deeper than what you’d call ’speed cream’ but it’s also a lot faster than you’d expect after getting 46″ of snow in three days. Robb Gaffney called it “sponge cake” (I think he had a lot of time to come up with that while waiting for me and a buddy to catch up).
Speaking of changing terrain, check out how NEW the Tram Face looks...
KT is just one of those places. I’m not usually tough enough so I simply bow to it then bolt on big days. I asked one of the black-camo’d lift maintenance crew guys when the people on the first chairs showed up to stake their claim: “Way earlier than they needed to” was the reply. If you were to say that to J. Blair or any of the other fooh’s who are full-blown KT O.C.D. addicts they’d probably look at each other and grin as their chair glided over billions of undisturbed crystals under North America’s single-best chair.
I have a video up of the first tracks down KT from this morning. It wasn’t the typical assault on the Fingers but it was really fun and you can hear the crowd at the bottom yipping away. Right now it’s 2:53pm and I’m going to head back out for Lasties on KT, more later…
Mon night, 7pm-ish: Here’s the KT Opening video I took. It’s pretty mellow so only click it if you are In The Mood. By the way, KT-22 was so named because it took Sandy Poulsen, the “First Lady of Squaw Valley”, twenty-two kick turns to make it down from the summit in 1948.
The Chammy's namesake weathervane: Deer with a Cape & Hat On...
THIS WEEKEND:
Friday: Season Passholder Reunion Party. Plaza Bar 3:30 – 7:00, live music featuring “The Beergardners,” Happy Hour 3:30 – 4:30 with $1.75 draft beer, peanuts in the shell just like the old days & Blue Light Specials – get set for 10 min of madness when the Blue Light goes on. Also, special showing of “Ski Squaw Style” the 1968 SV promo movie.
Saturday: 18th Annual Snow Gods’ Ball. A Squaw fave benefiting the SV Avalanche Awareness Ed. Fund (which is a really worthy thing, btw: free beacon clinics, scholarships for Avy I classes, etc.).
A remake on an old poster from The Day (80's) to promote this Friday's shindig
© 2009 Alex West all photos and copy; Passholder Party poster courtesy Tom O’Neill.
Tags: early season, gold coast, jib, jibbers, jibbing, jubbers, kt-22, kt-22 opening, shirley, shirley lake, sponge cake, squaw early season, squaw valley early season, terrain features
Posted by Big Al on December 8, 2009 under The Weekly Deal |
FRIDAY AM. UPDATE: It’s snowing again. National Weather Service is predicting snow for a little while today then a good storm rolling in late tonight and dumping through Sunday morning – looks like a storm day Sat then a potentially deep one on Sun….
THE LAST WEEK RECAP: You know those days that start on KT when the snow is so deep you have to straightline just about everything to maintain speed? Then you remind yourself that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as Squaw’s quantity of terrain goes – oh yeah, and the rest of the ski area is higher-elevation and could have even more snow? Well this week has been the early-season version of this phenomenon.
The first major storm of the season arrived in a fashion very unlike the people who live here – it was ahead of schedule and it was cold. Sunday afternoon saw a decent amount of mayhem on Rte. 80 but everyone who made it up (or who never left town in the first place) was rewarded with a ridiculous amount of snow on Red Dog for Monday morning. Snowboarders, yes snowboarders, were saying that it was borderline ‘too deep.’ Although I think that phrase is silly I can see the point that’s being made. My feeling is that if you are in snow that’s too deep then you’ve got one or two problems: 1) you don’t know where you are; 2) your gear stinks!
This was a cold, slop-less storm that brought us almost three feet on the hill. On Tuesday you could still venture to the sides of Red Dog, or especially the traversing groomer under KT, and get into some very deep pockets. The more speed was the merrier as you tried to embarrass yourself in front of spouse or buddy while hauling into plunge-able pillows. It was a blast! Red Dog opened more terrain – let’s call it the side-country because it was in its natural state but it was safe to ride given the new depth. A few people I talked to said they actually had more fun on Tuesday (leftovers) than Monday (freshies) because they could get up to more speed and still get pow stashes just by feeling around the hill; ie. mountain knowledge wasn’t key because you could just cruise around and see where it was deepest.
Oh, and in reference to the blog post below this one, “The Flow” is on for the Pacific and that’s good for people like us who ski in this ocean maritime climate, i.e. at Squaw! The “Quicksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau” surf contest can only be held on Hawaii in waves over 30’ and because of that it has only ‘gone’ eight times since its inception in 1985. Well it happened today with 40-footers rolling into Waimea Bay. It has an annual four-month window to take place and just one week into that allotted time Mama Ocean decided to punch out the entire window and let it rip! Translation: get your boards ready and set the GPS for Olympic Valley, Ca. because the Pacific is tossing and that does good things for our snow.
RECAP: “In The Mood” at the Resort last Th. was awesome. Organizer Rob Frohlich (”Fro”) inspired the whole crowd for just being there despite Stage 4 cancer. Points North Heli owner Kevin Quinn was supposed to give away one heli day but because of a story about Fro recently skinning and skiing an Alaskan peak three times Quinn said, “my wife (Jessica Sobolowski-Quinn) is going to kill me but I’m going to give away THREE heli days!” The unthinkable happened when the first name drawn didn’t show to collect his prize. Three other lucky souls were handed the privilege including Squaw legend Craig Beck. Beck had in turn given away a pair of hand-made longboards for the auction which benefited the Tahoe Forest Cancer Center. It was a hoot and for a lot of us the A/V highlight was the opening segment with amazing Tom Day time-lapse footage set to the Grateful Dead’s “Here Comes Sunshine” jam….the whole night was very Squaw and very fun.
Tags: "Squaw Valley", deep powder, fro, frohlich, funitel, heli ski, hip deep, in the mood, opening, points north, powder, sobolowski, squaw opening
