I mentioned in a previous post how I went to Mammoth on a Mountain Collective Pass. My friend Michael and I now decided to go crazy and drive all the way to Whistler, BC, Canada and hit the three resorts on the way that offer the pass.
Executive summary: Driving from San Diego to Whistler and back in a week is crazy. But it’s still better than flying. Thanks, airlines!
Continue readingWhat a tragically bad season to get a Mountain Collective Pass! We’ve barely had any precipitation at all in California, and the more South you go, the drier it gets. Snow pack was below 33% of normal, which means most mountains would only allow on-piste skiing, and that’s tragically bad for crowd control.
The Mountain Collective Pass, if you haven’t heard, is the attempt of the non-Vail resorts to band together. Vail owns many of the top ski areas in North America, and they offer a season pass that allows you to ski at all of them. The other ones had nothing similar to offer, and have been coasting on monopolistic revenue for way too long: the snow aficionado could only get a pass to, say, Mammoth or Whistler, and then buy day passes at all the resorts for which a season pass wouldn’t be cost-effective.
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Y’all probably remember the terrible snowboarding accident that cut short my budding career as the world’s worst snowboarder. Well, that was three years ago, and I am still not fully recovered: there isn’t much to recover when tendons snap off, is there? But I am pretty much functional as I was, if more cautious at times.
While I’ve been good about keeping active, and even added surfing as a new and all-consuming sport, I didn’t snowboard as much any longer. By “as much” I mean that** I hadn’t been snowboarding since the accident**, with a single exception.
Continue readingPeople familiar with the geography of the place know that Heavenly-the-resort is named after a creek and valley that come down from East Peak, the highest skiable location in the Tahoe region. So, to expect it to be heavenly would be geographically not justified.
We had a series of intense storms in the Northern California region, so it seemed the perfect moment to rush out and get to Tahoe. I rented a car, since I wanted to go midweek (and realized later I could have gotten a bunch of friends to go with me). I filled the tiny Kia Rio with the gear and off I went at 5:30.
Continue readingDay 2 of my yearly trip to Whistler. The snow stinks, and you can’t really do anything outside of groomed runs, but storms are on their way. The base is decent, but really way too low for this time of the year. In places you see the base of trees, and the snow covering the rest of the mountain looks threadbare and thin. Snowmaking equipment is on all day and night.
Continue readingNo car and snowboarder? What do you do? Take your bike up to Tahoe (hopefully it’s motorized) with your gear and your snowboard strapped on your back? Comes in handy when going downhill, you can use the board as your wings and fly above the crowd waiting in that giant parking lot that is I-80 on a Sunday evening.
So far, I had three options: rent a car, go with friends that are willing to drive, or hitch a ride with unknown strangers on craigslist or one of the carshare sites. Each of the three came with advantages and disadvantages:
Continue reading{moszoomimglink:Cornice}Of all the resorts in the Tahoe area, Kirkwood has been consistently cited by friends as the one with the best snow. It is indeed in an odd location, about 40 minutes South of South Lake Tahoe, all by itself. The slopes face the East, which means they are shielded from the fierce West winds that bring all the powder with the winter storms.
I had not gone in the four years I had been snowboarding: I had always relied on season passes, and it seemed foolish to pay extra tickets and then go to a place so far off. Indeed, those that love Kirkwood all say that it doesn’t have anything going on outside the slopes, unlike SLT, where you don’t get bored no matter what time of the year.
Continue readingIt’s Saturday evening, and the party people in the house are not budging. There are lots of places to go, lots of booze to drink, and yet nothing moves. Why is that? Well, tomorrow is a powder day!
We decide to leave early in the morning. Whistler has this wonderful program called Fresh Tracks that gets you up the mountain at 7:30a (one hour before the general population is allowed to join). For the price of $16 (in addition to the ticket), you get breakfast and early access to the slopes.
Continue reading{moszoomimglink:Snowball fight in Heavenly 2}Nice picture of me, don’t you think? This one was shot on Heavenly, the first time I decided to go without a helmet, on a bright sunny and warm day. We had a ton of fun, despite being terribly skill-mismatched.
This one was shot while I was throwing snowballs at George, the most terrific person you could imagine working with. We were racing down the mountain and suddenly realized we had lost Lina, and sat down waiting.
Continue readingJust as I thought the seasons was over, I get an alert from Yahoo! telling me there are 19" of fresh powder in Sierra! Check out the picture from the Sierra webcam! {moszoomimglink:sierralift}
