Splitboard.com Forums

Met up at the parking lot of the best resort in Tahoe. Decided to go to some lakes, since its spring. The crew was San Frantastico, Jimw, Dan, Miko, Larry, and I.

The first climb up Whiskey, impeccable grooming...
Conversation on the corduroy, SF, Jimw, and Larry


Climbing the corduroy, Dan and Miko


Cirque de rocks


First transition, destination in sight, SF and Larry


And after cheating a bit and surfing the wave, we skin out of the resort


More skinning, I'm slow, but I get there eventually


Emigrant and Caples lake


Peaking over the shoulder of the Peak


Beautiful views


Time to transition, a good place for photos
(This picture reminds me of a South Park episode where the boys start a boy band and they are posing for the album cover on the beach, so funny)


SF ready for the first backcountry descent


Jimw and Dan ready to drop


My board is ready too, Fourth of July Lake down below


*New little video compilation of the clips below*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lUDExDxkbs

I think this clip is Larry headed towards 4th of July lake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLtzGF74dIo

And SF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beH844bixks

And JimW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8bOV1cJXYg

Jimw getting ready to drop the wall down to the lake


Looking back at the headwall we descended to the lake, and then bootpacked back up, thanks to Jimw and his awesome verts


After the bootpack we did more skinning, then transitioned again to drop down to Emigrant Lake

This is a clip of Jimw coming out of a chute towards Emigrant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYbd3lHZres

Looking back across the lake at our line, we came down the chute just left of the chute just left of the big rock band


It was a great day, very good to meet everyone, lots of fun riding even though some of the snow wasn't perfect, and awesome weather.

(Next time I think I will just take still action shots, the videos didn't some out too good, oh well.)

Thanks guys for letting me tag along, even though I'm just a girl.
-L2R

Nice tour, but I don't know about your partners.

So, no hassle from patrol by skinning up on onbounds groomers? Looks like you maybe used Chair 4 since they don't check tickets back there.

No hassles from patrol, a few of them stopped on their snomos. They just told us to watch out for people coming down the run, gave us some beta on snow conditions and asked us where we were going, and told us to have a good day. Love that place!

And yeah we did cheat a little.

Is there a name for that move where you strap in with your board facing one direction, but you need to go on the opposite traverse so you stand up and do a little wheelie to swing the board around? We'll whatever it's called, make sure your tail clip is fastened before you try it. Especially if you're taking off from the edge of a cornice drop called the wave without leaving room for error when it hasn't snowed for a few weeks. Unless, of course, your goal is to create spectacular humor for everyone riding chair 4.


Just a girl who rips...

I think that move is called the switch nose butter, better watch out, its only a matter of time before you start jibbin in the park.

Hey, how about that, each of us looks like a complete dork in that photo - what are the chances?? It does look like Larry and Dan are doing some kind of dance...


It's even better than that. We were about to get on the lift, and one of lifties came running over yelling "wait, stop!" We thought he was going to kick us off, but then the guy gives us a hamburger and says, "Hey, can you take this up to our buddy at the top? He's totally hung over and could really use it." Gotta love it.


A little? We cheated a LOT... and loved it! At first I felt a little bit dirty, but I managed to get over it quickly.

Let's see, I know I must have a few pics of my own around here somewhere...

Finally got around to going through my pics...

So, we had been talking about doing a longish tour from Carson Pass to Kirkwood. My buddy Dan was in town from B.C., and wanted to do a bc day. On Friday he had done a short trip down to 4th of July Lake from the backside of Kirkwood, and reported great conditions there, but boney conditions on the route we were planning to take on the backside of the The Sisters. So we modified the plan and came up with:

The Ultimate Lazy Split Tour (tm)

The Ultimate Lazy Split Tour (tm) begins in the parking lot at Kirkwood. Ideally, you arrive there at least half an hour after the appointed time, just to set the tone for the tour. Then you start skinning up the groomers under the chair toward the backside.

At the trailhead (there is something very wrong about this):



A mellow skin soon brings you to the first summit. It's a pretty nice backcountry view.



Except for the fact that when you turn around, you realize you aren't quite in the backcountry yet.



At least the patrol hut provides a nice wind block, and the Hawaiian slack key music wafting out the window makes for a relaxing transition.

After ripping down the groomer to chair 4, be sure to stop at the lunch place to, um, "pre-relieve" yourself. You certainly don't want to be doing that in the backcountry! Then get on the lift. In exchange for the free ride you apparently may be required to take a hamburger up to the liftie at the top who is suffering from a hangover.

Splitters getting of the... lift?? Heresy!



It felt pretty wrong to cheat by taking the lift... for about 2 seconds. Then I got over it and fully appreciated the triumph of laziness. After dropping by The Wave, we started skinning out towards Melissa Coray peak.



Half an hour later we were at the top of a nice chute dropping down towards 4th of July Lake. Here's Larry and Dan practicing their Synchronized Skinning (tm):



Dan, who was a tele monster the last time I rode with him, recently picked up a super-light AT setup, complete with Dynafits. I have to admit it was pretty damn cool, and very light. Here he demonstrates something called a "fast transition". Don't ask me, I've never heard of it either.



SF and L2R get ready to drop in:



L2R shreds it:



SF:



After the first bowl, it flattens out for a bit, then drops down again to the lake. The last pitch is fairly steep, and Dan suggested that we might want to stop there because the skin up might be a little heinous, seeing as how we were starting to encounter rotting snow. At this point we allowed the desire for turns to override the "lazy" criteria, and dropped down to the lake anyway. After a quick snack, we started back up, and quick realized that Dan was right. The splitters turned to booting, while Larry and Dan managed to continue skinning.



I had the Verts thankfully, but SF and L2R were not too happy about the postholing conditions. The Vert steps helped, but they still punched through a few times. Here's SF cooling off in the water flowing under the snow. I believe he said that his gigantic nads prevented him from going in even futher, or something like that.



We finally got to a point where we could skin again, and continued heading back towards Melissa Coray.



Lots of great easily accessed terrain (especially if you cheat like we did) back there.





Across the valley from the lake is Deadwood Peak. Appropriately named:







The rest of the skin up was pretty mellow, and soon we were at the top of a nice chute on Melissa Coray.



Darth Vader, a.k.a Buffy The Couloir Slayer, a.k.a liketoride:



Larry and Dan dropped into the chute and made it look easy. Here's Larry:



Dan:



The conditions sounded a little bit hardpacked, so we hiked around a rock to another chute with a slightly better aspect to find some softer snow. L2R goes first and nails it:



SF:



It was a great ride down to Emigrant Lake. Tons of nice lines back here too, could easily play around back here all day. Looking back across the lake at the lines:



A quick traverse brought us back to the groomers, and we picked up chair 4 again just for the hell of it. Why not get in a free descent? This is the Lazy Tour after all! Then we caught the other chair back over to the frontside, and hit the groomer back to the "trailhead".

Maybe there's nothing wrong with this picture after all?



SF and L2R back at the BYC, yo. (Big Yellow Car)



It turned out to be a great day, and it was nice to tour with some new folks. I can see this tour becoming a regular for me, it suits my pace. Now I just need to get a Euro-rando-racer helmet.

- Jimw you are cracking me up today. I don't know if it was the size of my nads that stopped me from dropping all the way through that posthole, but they certainly were swollen afterwards. I refer to this encounter as 'the posthole that hurt my nuts.'

Of course I have a few pictures to add..

L2R, stoked.


jimw, stoked.


About to drop.


jimw.





L2R.


Dan.


Those magical verts.


L2R - still stoked.


Some scenics...





Dropping again.




Our line out.


Our other line out...


Thanks everyone (including KW) for a great day!