March 3, 2007
Big Vert in Tahoe - Porcupine Ridge to Gardnerville
Joe, Toby
Porcupine Ridge as seen from Foothill Road in Gardnerville, NV We skied the dogleg gully directly below the high point on the ridge.
It's only available for a short time, usually once a year. Often it is not possible at all for an entire year. But the big storm came in cold and dumped about 1' of snow in the foothills of Gardnerville. So we had to give it a go while we could. We started the morning off by dropping a car at the bottom of Kingsbury and Foothill Road. We then rode the lifts of Heavenly to the top of Dipper. We left the resort through the Fullstone Gate and skied good boot deep powder down to Monument Pass. After parting with other fellow valley skiers, Toby and I skinned up to the high point on the first section of Porcupine Ridge. We descended a nice steep curving gully for about 1,500'. A traverse took us South to a manageable ridge to skin back up to the top of Porcupine Ridge. It was thick powder on a steep slope. Trail breaking was very tough and we both bonked, but managed to make it back to the top with some energy left. A bit more climbing to the South brought us to the high point of Porcupine Ridge. We then skied one of the greatest lines in all of Tahoe (at least in comparison to the ones I've skied). It was a relentless 35-40 degree couloir for at least 2,000'. Below that was an enormous apron that went on for another 1,000'. And below that was....well....bush whacking and thinly covered road cruising all the way to the foothill neighborhoods. I can't wait to return to ski some of the other incredible lines in the area.
First some pretty views.
From the Kingsbury car pool parking lot we could see our day's work ahead of us. Doesn't look too big? It's 5,000' of vertical:
From just past the Killibrew rope. Monument Pass below, Porcupine Ridge, Jobs & Jaws in the upper right:
(L to R) Porcupine Ridge, Jobs Sister, Freel:
(L to R) Jobs Sister, Freel, Frimmer, Trimmer, High Meadows is below Trimmer. This shows our entire route from 1/20/07
A place worth returning to; Frimmer:
The back of Heavenly (Monument Peak). Beach on left, Fullstone Gate skiing on the right:
A new angle on Trimmer's twin slide paths, the elevens:
Now the skiing.
Toby drops the first 1,500' shot with Gardnerville nearly 5,000' below:
The gully opened up a can of good times for us, with something new around every corner:
The wind packed out a few spots for us, just to keep us from grinning too much:
But the good snow still outweighed the bad:
Although we were tempted to continue down this fine line.....
We knew we needed to traverse right to get ourselves back up to the top for the final big ski. Our traverse:
We would skin up these innocent looking trees. But the snow was soft, dense and spongy, i.e. tough for trail breaking:
Toby in the old Kingsbury burn area, feeling the heat:
The view towards our next line (upper left sky line) kept us motivated. The only thing that feels better than being at the bottom of something big and steep, is being at the top of something big and steep:
Going up:
Topping out and feeling good again. Finally!
The view West into Desolation was worthy:
We then reached the high point of Porcupine Ridge. Time to ski again.
Soooooo, do you know which drainage we follow to get back to the truck?
Toby points us in the right direction, so that's where we head:
Standing on the Moon, with nothing left to do:
Toby flowing:
...and it opens up...
...into the chute....
I skied next. Despite the lactic acid burning holes in my pants, I could not stop turning for a long time while in the never ending throat of this perfect line. This picture does not do this place justice, but it will put a grin on my face when viewing it next August in the Summer heat.
Toby in the low down dirty pow:
There are lots of signs of big avalanches in this area. These little trees were one of them:
The shadow approved:
Where couloir, I mean gully, I mean canyon.....meets apron:
Still lots of good turns left:
Older avalanche debris pile at the base of a neighboring drainage:
A straight line for Zippy was spotted:
Even lower and still turning:
Sort of turning:
It's VERY important to not miss the road. It's where the fun's at!
It's also where the snow's at:
This is The End, my only friend, The End:
A little walk to the truck where the cold beers await us:
A marked up photo showing most of our route (blue is descent, red is ascent):
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