Sweet, Sweet Silvy

Posted by Big Al on January 30, 2010 under The Weekly Deal | Read the First Comment

This is the first year that I can remember a Ribbon Cutting-esque opening of Silverado. The email from SVUSA which went out on Thursday was a fair-play announcement that couldn’t have been more welcome for those who didn’t get to the hill on Friday (which was also an awesome day, btw). This was a classic Silvy opening that had a little twist.

Tied with 90 other tram riders for "Happiest Guy in the World" (Erv Wolf)

Usually it’s a duct tape crew heading up on the first tram but today was different which probably had something to do with the Bronze Pass being blacked out. A 7:30 arrival was early enough to be first in the Cable Car building so I had a good look at the crew as it developed. The next 7 or 8 folks were split between weekenders and 20 & 30-something age locals. It was pretty quiet until 8a when the regulars showed and then things got loud. The ‘Martini Corrals’ (so-named from antics in 1983’s “Hot Dog, The Movie”) weren’t even full until 8:15 so Silvy was easily had this morning, unless you were the kid whose buddies made the cut but you stopped for a quick cup o’joe – ooops. As we got off at High Camp, the driver shouted, “No long speeches! I hate you all! Have a great day!!”

For those who percolated at home this was the view you got as you swizzled up to Silverado’s entry gates:

As close to Patrolled Backcountry as you can get

Two easy untouched laps were followed by a third audible where we crossed tracks but the pitches we picked from the chair were fresh. Remember this was Saturday at 10am. Unbelievable. And the natural, raw terrain of Squaw’s most infamous chair is skiing steep with deep, bouldery pillows everywhere. Straightruns were fast and avy debris was skiable and minimal. It took a couple laps for the more popular hits, chutes and airs to get slashed. I’m sure by this time of day that some ridiculous lines on the China Wall have seen board bases as well. Every ‘classic’ Silvy liftline includes familiar faces, snowballs, nickname shout-outs and the enlightened gazes of those who’ve just ventured down it for the first time. Today had all of those – we were even treated to watching a lesson make its way down Bungee Bowl. Later this season I’ll do a feature on Silvy. BTW, did you know that Silverado is one square mile of terrain?

Here’s a photo essay of the morning

Gotta leave in the dark to make it count

The River Road

Yeah, I guess I got up early enough

The Slow Box goes up just before ours...

Another way to heckle strangers - the tram passholder TV screen. "Nice Tie, Tye!"

Lunar Landing - part of Tram Bowl

Erv Wolf Depth Testing in a favorite spot

One of the Best Rides in Sports

Amazing How Such Once-Revolutionary Skis are now "Classics". Still nothing I'd rather ride on deep, fast days...

Just one big happy family - lots of smiles and snowballs

You can see other pics from this blog post on Squaw.com

Raw at Squaw – this ain’t sushi

Posted by Big Al on January 23, 2010 under The Weekly Deal | Be the First to Comment

This is from Squaw charger and North Tahoe Hitchhiker Extraordinaire, Miles Clark. He’s a pro skier and guide who is fired up to share the view from his goggles. SquawBlog will be featuring his stuff whenever we get the chance. Check it out…

Let’s Huck a little bit…

Posted by Big Al on January 22, 2010 under The Weekly Deal | Be the First to Comment

We’ve gotten over 64 inches in a week – I guess the patroller who said 7′ in 10 days wasn’t too far off…. Check out the Storm Tracker on Squaw.com for the ridiculous line-up of digits showing the totals. Yesterday was the deepest day of the season. Snowshoe Thompson-esque accumulation rates buried us yesterday and the day before. Today was surprisingly stormy but only over the ski area and that’s kind of been the story of this storm cycle. We’ve had sun over the Lake while the entire West Shore has been socked in. Up until yesterday Tahoe  City only had a foot on the ground. Now there’s an easy 2+ and the whole place looks like a wedding cake.

It's piling up in Granite... (skier: Jamie Blair, photo: Patrick Mulligan)

Anyone working in the City today?? Seems like everyone who had this weekend on the books decided to call in “SICK!!!” and see what a six-foot pow day looks like. If you want to see what’s among the possibilities on a big ole pow day then take a look at this high-speed antic from today:

Just another guy at Squaw...! (skier: Jamie Blair, photo: Patrick Mulligan)

This is what we like to see...

It’s Setting Up…

Posted by Big Al on January 14, 2010 under The Weekly Deal | Be the First to Comment

…to be a huge couple weeks! A patroller told me that the mid-term forecast is 7 feet in the next 10 days so stay tuned. We just started getting snow again and there have been some awesome cream cheese pow days – those boot-deep ones with dense, fast snow. Today was actually a bit deeper than that and it felt like there was nobody on the hill. KT and Headwall got going early, and long Tower 16 laps became a nice way to milk some more time out of our legs.

Dead Tree area - see the namesake towards upper left

Here’s another reason why Squaw is one of the best mountains on the continent – on storm days when ‘all you have’ is KT you’re skiing almost 2,000′ of vert and about 200-degrees of exposure every 20 minutes. Some locals call it the ‘Mothership’ while others simply think of it as the greatest non-hiking workout of all California chairs. Then there’s its little sis:

Oly Lady - a classic

Olympic Lady is an infrequently-run chair that’s probably tied for the best ratio of vertical feet to awesome terrain; the other one would be Cornice II. What’s so striking about this little chair, and CII, is that they drop you off on a precipice. From the top terminal of both lifts you can immediately air a massive cliff (or just about tap the hucker’s helmet while sitting on the chair). The fact that these lifts are spinning mid-week shows a lot of good effort from Ski Corp so Cheers to them!