May 27, 2006
Red Lake - May Powder
Joe, Toby and Buddy
May Day! May Day! - I'm going down in the pow - 5/27/06.
A powder day in May is a seldom, although not unheard of, occurrence in Tahoe. Although we've skied our share of great corn over this last month, one last serving of kung pao was what we were really craving. Surprisingly this chilly Memorial Weekend morning greeted us Southsiders with a couple of inches of snow on the blooming plants and flurries in the sky. Toby and I ditched our mountain bike plans (we've got another 5 months of that ahead of us....) and busted out the skis. We headed to the quick and reliable Red Lake Avalanche gully. We cramponed up the windy blustery ridge to the top, changed over and skied pockets as deep as 6" off the top, and 1" down to the bottom. Yea!
Plenty of fun pow turns coming off the top:
Avalanche cannons are usually placed on the leeward side of slopes, where wind loaded snow accumulates. Perfect slopes for pow hunters (when conditions are safe, like today):
Back to corny conditions at the bottom:
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