Well, Tahoe didn't quite get the 5 foot dump that the Kirkwood weather folks were dreaming of in their predictions, but it turned out okay for the most part. Between Thursday and when I bailed Sunday, there was a good 2-3ft of fresh snow, only about the top 6-12" on Sunday, at the top of the mountain could qualify as real powder, but the rest wasn't bad... *edit: Kirkwood claims 4-5 feet, but it was so wet and packed down that this really wan't the case. Still, nice though!
Did anyone get out and ride Friday before the rain came in? Even rained at Kirkwood on the bottom of the hill, while just the top 1/2 got sloppy snow..
Saturday was fun, not very crowded, but very wet. Because of overnight spike in snow level, top half of the mountain was fun, bottom half was wet work in sloppy sierra cement...
Sunday, crowded, as many chairs had delayed openings with major, major avy control work going on. Very big patrol and bomb triggered avy's. But alas, they did manage to get the entire mountain open, including the backside...
Snow fell, heavy at times, all day, both days... The mix of light on heavy snow made for some nice padding to drop just about anything you wanted... I did a couple nice big drop's to flat (not entirely by choice) and rolled out of them without more than a good laugh and a head full of snow...
Today would be sweet up there. In a couple days, the backcountry will be sweet too. Just right now, it's pretty sketchy with a mix of heavy then lighter stuff on a pretty firm base... I managed to shear off a few small slabs Saturday, not much on Sunday.
Be carefull out there in the next couple days... However, next weekend should be a nice one to get out and play with very low risk.. As always though, check avalanche.org and dig around a little before you get too crazy... This has not been a normal Tahoe year, and we don't quite yet have a normal Tahoe snowpack...
Might post a couple scenic shots tonight or tomorrow. No action, as I spent most of the time riding alone and it was seriously "gray bird" with bad visibility for photo ****ting...