March 4, 2006
In Deeeeep on Tallac
Joe, Toby, Buddy, Chris, Matt, Arash, Tyler, Chad, Chili Dog, etc.
The view that never gets old, Top of North Bowl on a deep Tallac day on 3/4/06.
Pretty simple write up here. The upper elevations around Tahoe were hammered with at least 5'+ of new snow over the previous 5 days. When skies cleared we headed for the crown jewel of Tahoe's backcountry; Tallac. Usually our earlier than most departures pay off with first and fresh tracks, but sometimes we pay with massive trail breaking. Today was a strong dose of both. We endured 3,000'+ of trail breaking (including the closed Spring Creek Road from Hwy 89). It was very deep and laborious, especially those steep kick turns where it was necessary to bring our knees up to our chin to get that uphill ski out of the snow and flung around! 3 1/2 hours after setting out from Highway 89 we reached the ridge above North bowl, just North of the summit. Although we would have loved to have skied something steep and spicy, the copious amounts of new snow convinced us to play it safe in Sun Bowl on our first lap, Corkscrew on our 2nd lap and a grand finish off the tippy top of Sweat Hill. I didn't take a bunch of photos, but it was a great time in the ridiculously deep pow. It was so deep, it had to be steep.
The few pictures I took on the way up. Toby and Buddy putting in the trough that served as the future skin tract highway. We had to change the blade on the bulldozer quite often in this stuff - (Left and Below). Chris followed by Matt on our perfect Bluebird morning with the big drink far below. (above).
The views from the top were a reward....
Chili Dog proved it was more than dog deep:
But the pow going down was the real treat (Toby and Tyler):
Another 1/2 lap up the finely tuned skin tract and then another deep run in the not quite steep enough trees of Corkscrew. Toby, Buddy and I found our best turns of the day down Sweat Hill from the marquee starting point at the tippy top. A couple of sorta decent pics:
....and another storm is on it's way.
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