January 26, 2008
Heavenly to Gardnverville - Going big on Tahoe's East Side
Joe, Toby, Jeff, Josh
A Fat Base of Snow. Lots of Fresh Light Powder. A Big Nevada Desert below. A Sunny California Sky above. Pretty hard to beat this day. Josh cranking it up with many thousands of feet left 'til he hits desert.
For some strange reason a little micro climate existed over Heavenly around January 24th-25th. While most of the South shore areas were dry, the eastside of Heavenly and Porcupine ridge were piling up light and dry powder. I was shocked to hear this considering my experiences in other South shore locales recently. But when Toby said it was "all time" and now was the time to drain it to Gardnerville for 5,000' of insanity.....I got busy setting up a car shuttle. A truck at Kingsbury and Foothill at 8:00 AM, boarding Stagecoach by 8:30 AM. Game. On.
Low lying clouds shrouded the Carson Valley nearly 1 mile below. (Photo - Jeff)
Jeff on top of the beach, with Porcupine Ridge beyond.
View back at the Beach (left) and the Fullstone Canyon face (right) from Monument Pass.
We made the quick 5 minute skin to the crest of Porcupine ridge:
Anticipation.
And it's on:
Kid Jib doesn't miss an opportunity. But the photographer did.
Jeff:
Then an open powder field presented itself to us. I was in the lead and fortunately cleared out of the way. I did manage to capture the race for #2 between Toby and Josh. No friends on powder daze.
Josh lines up......
The Money Shot!......nice left arm draggin' action.
Not to be outdone, Toby sails by both of us gobbling up more kung pao chicken down below:
"We're going to Gardnerville! It's down here!"
Jeff waited for the commotion to settle, and then made the skiing look like something out of a Canadian Heli Ski vacation guide:
It was way to good to not go back up for more. So we followed this skin track for a while, then punched in our own for the 1,000' return to Mott Canyon lift.
After the culture shock of returning to the Heavenly lift lines during a sunny Saturday in January, we bolted out of bounds again, this time via Fullstone Canyon. We found ourselves at Monument Pass once again, and proceeded to skin up to Porcupine Ridge again.
This time we took a little more obscure line down a yummy ridge slightly South. Toby took the camera and captured some images of the fella w/ the yellow jacket.
But first he had to ski (Photo - Jeff):
Then it was I (Photo - Jeff):
Josh followed:
Jeff in our private little gully with the sun shining through.
Then the yellow jacket appeared on an alternate lower shot off the ridge.
Jeff and I together in this one.
Josh in the gully.
Toby framed both Jeff and I in this sequence:
Coming in hot and happy for a yellow jacket sequence.
Our playground from below. See the tracks?
And what's left to go. See the road on the opposite side of the drainage?
Jeff milking out a few more.
One creek crossing,
then road cruising:
Photo - Jeff
Some guys have to ski all the way to the truck
Done!
And back in time for Sophie's 8th birthday party
Jeff skis with this cool GPS in his pack, and is able to make these cool maps of our travels on Google Earth.
Our daily vert. It's nice when it's lopsided towards the descent.
topo:
Paul does these cool maps for his road rides too. I need to look into them for my own wanderings.
More snow coming this week, which means more powder grins too. 2008 is shaping up nicely.
Return to Backcountry Skiing Page