A rough start to the season

Well, I haven't taken the time to sit and write anything about this season because we haven't really had one yet. While we did enjoy some exciting early, and I mean early, season snow and powder skiing, we haven't really gotten much of anything since. In fact, the month of December was the 9th snowiest month of 2011, meaning that May, June, October and November were all snowier. The only months this year with less snow were July, August, and September...

Both Squaw and Alpine are now open and the only skiing available at either resort is on man-made snow. What little skiing we do have has been fun and I've been enjoying relearning tricks in the park and really getting into my carves. I know that it doesn't always snow and that weather is cyclical in nature, but the complete and utter lack of natural snow is defeating and a very stark contrast from this time last year, or any of the past 10 that I've been living in Tahoe... The tourists have been here in force regardless of the lack of snow and open ski terrain making the ski resorts nearly unbearable.

I am hopeful that it will eventually snow around here and I look forward to skiing powder again sometime. Here's a quick video from October 7th, 2011, the best early October powder I've ever skied, and the best powder un of my 2011/2012 season so far... Happy New Year!

More May fun, and Pow!!!

So, Its late May. Our coverage throughout the state of California is truly without precedent. Interestingly it won't stop snowing. In fact, we got 10 inches of snow overnight last night up high. Toiday was yet another great May powder day. Alpine Meadows is closed for the season and that is actually great because it makes for a great place to go touring. I spent the morning up there today and got 6 or so runs of really good powder skiing, especially for late May!!!

Prior to our recent powder storm I went down to the southern Sierra with the hopes of getting it good for a couple days. Turns out that my timing wasn't great and it was windy as hell. Tioga pass opened for the season on Thursday and on friday morning it was so windy that no one was willing to go up there. We changed our plan and headed farther south where the winds were supposed to be mellower. It was our first time to Onion Valley/Kearsarge Pass and the winds were still incredible. We toughed it out and in the end we had a pretty good ski day in a new part of the range that none of us have ever explored. We almost made it to the summit of University Peak, 13,632 ft. but we were thwarted by the insane winds. Regardless we had a pretty fun ski..

More May Powder

My calendar may say May 17th, but is sure still feels like winter here. Maycember, Maybruary, call it what you will because its snowing to beat the band here in Tahoe. The ski areas are closing and you can't really blame them. People are done skiing for the year. Flowers were blooming, snow was melting off at lake level incredibly fast, and then it started snowing, again... Overnight we got 8 inches at my house. I expected very little from this storm and we got quite a bit more than I bargained for. America's biggest professional bike race, the Tour of California, came to Lake Tahoe for the first time over the past weekend. The first stage was called off due to snow, the second stage was cut by half the distance and the start was moved from Squaw Valley to Nevada City. I can't blame them, there's no way I was going to ride a road bike either, I was too busy skiing powder...

More snow.....?

Yes, this is the winter that will not end. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm really psyched that we'll be skiing well into the month of July this year. It has been a challenge, though, to get consistent snow conditions with the weather changing on an almost daily basis. We got a little new snow last week and we enjoyed some powder-like conditions around the resort and in the backcountry. On Friday I headed up Mt. Tallac, for only the second time this season, and enjoyed the day with Mike and Oscar. I finally got to ski the Babycham for the first time this year and I was relieved to check that one off my annual to-do list. It was pretty good too...

The hits just keep on coming

After an almost spirit crushing 6 week dry spell we have been back in the powder here in Tahoe for the past three weeks or so. Looks like it might stay that way for a while with the jet stream lining us up and high pressure settling in the Gulf of Alaska. A few days ago we got a warm wet storm that left us with 15 inches of dense awesome powder. Great snow for everything, especially skiing some steeps, short Tahoe steeps, but tons of fun nonetheless. Check out these little video clips of some of the fun I've been having lately.

recent skiing fun

The snow has stayed incredibly good and we even got 4 more feet through the past week. Here's a few little videos I put together from the past several days...

Milking the Powder

After pretty good success finding reasonable snow conditions yesterday I went out on a little tour on Stanford Rock with my buddy Oscar. We found some more good snow, still dust on crust and transforming into a thinner and denser layer of powder. We explored a few lines that we don't regularly ski in an attempt to search out some untracked. We found good open slopes but some discontinuous fall lines. It was pretty fun to ski some more powder and play around with POV camera.

Home again, Home again

So we rafted down the Grand Canyon for 25 days. It was one of the most amazing adventures I've ever been on. More about that later on. Since we got home on the 18th of December the skiing is as good as I've ever seen before and around Christmas. We've got 200 percent of our usual snowpack for this time of year, and that is making for some great skiing. Both the resorts and the backcountry have been absolutely going off and my first week of skiing for the season included plenty of runs that often don't fill in until February. Pretty much everyday that I've skied this season has been a powder day and thats a hell of a way to start the season. Here's a little video I shot the other day on the 27th of December at Alpine Meadows.

12/27/10 Alpine Meadows from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Skiing! First turns of the season

Just a couple days ago we were enjoying the best mountain biking conditions of the year here in Lake Tahoe. Consistent rains and nice warm temperatures made this fall one to remember on the trails around the Lake. That being said, once November hits I'm usually ready for it to start snowing in earnest, or at least go one way or the other, indian summer or winter. A couple days ago it started raining and winter flexed its muscles. We only got about a half inch of snow at lake level, but up high there was anywhere between a foot and eighteen inches. I went out for a tour of Alpine Meadows and found some fun snow to ski. It was definitely some of the thinnest cover I've ever skied, but was fun nonetheless.

November 8, 2010. from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

I used my GoPro POV camera to catch some interesting video of the action. This was one of the rare times of the season when speed is not your friend and you defintely don't want to take any chances. It was great to get out and move around on the snow regardless. If you decide to go, bring your rock skis....

Home again, Home again

Its nice to be home, and we've been getting some snow. Late April doesn't really add up to the best powder skiing, but I got out and tried, and I tried a funky new angle with my helmet cam...

Welcome Home! from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Another 18 inches?

It didn't take long for our most recent storm to drop another 12-18 overnight last night. Coupled with our already excellent conditions this made for another awesome powder day at Alpine Meadows.

I broke out the GoPro POV cam for most of the day and captured an inordinate number of full arm pumps while in the air off cliffs. I found myself going for some airs that had steep, tricky, spiny take-offs, and maybe that had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, hopefully I met my yearly quota for rolling up the windows and I can move on.

The snow quality was amazing and it seemed like everyone was taking full advantage of the great conditions. Supposed to be a high of 57 degrees by Monday! Get it while you can because this powder isn't going to last long....

Alpine Meadows 3-13-10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

More exceptional conditions in Lake Tahoe

That's right, more great skiing in Lake Tahoe. While I might have missed the storm that rolled through here last week when I was in Utah, I won't be missing any more. Some of the snow that fell last week has stayed cold and dry in the high north facing areas, that coupled with the 6 inches of cold fluffy snow we got last night has made for great ski conditions all over the Lake Tahoe backcountry. Today I headed up to Mt. Tallac with Andrew and his buddy Matt. In the photo above they scope their line with Angora and the Hall of the Gods in the background.

Here we're getting ready to drop into another perfect pow run after skiing the line on the left in the background. It was a beautiful day out there today, sunny all morning with some high clouds moving in this afternoon bringing another overnight refresher... It has actually already started snowing again...

Lake Tahoe Backcountry, Tuesday 3-9-10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

I've been having fun playing with the angles on my GoPro POV camera and here's another video from the pole cam. We had some great conditions out there today, and possibly the best run down the Corkscrew that I've ever had. Later in the video I picked my way down into the S-chute which is still pretty narrow, and incredibly steep...

Wet slide city

This week we've gotten two really warm, wet storms that dropped 16 and 12 inches respectively. While our snow is usually heavier than most, this is starting to get ridiculous. Today, everything slid, everything. Things that don't slide were sliding, and going through the forest to boot. It was a waste of time to ski anything steep because as soon as you got into it the whole thing was going to slide. Its the nature of the beast I suppose, and its days like these that you gotta love low angle powder. Lucky for me I'm not too proud to ski some mellow slopes... The visibility today was also quite poor, so I only pulled out my GoPro POV camera for a few shots, and here they are.

A few clips from Alpine Meadows 2/27/10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Please hit button to Refresh

As it was finally starting to get a little ugly around here we got just what we needed. Somebody hit the refresh button, and just like that we've got six new inches of good quality snow to smooth everything out. With a bit of a nagging foot injury I can't really ski anything but really smooth snow, so I headed up to Mt. Tallac today to see how the snow was. The recent snow has made the skining conditions much better and more grippy making for a much easier climb than you would have found out there a few days ago. Only three people were out there in front of me today, and I thank them for a great new skin track. I was also impressed by their especially gnarly drop-ins to the top of the cross, way to get after it whoever you are. Luckily for me, two of my favorite ski runs in the world were completely untracked... While the new snow was very stable it was sluffing pretty fast, not deep, but fast. The sluff made me a little tentative, but I still had a great time up there today. I toyed around with a new GoPro POV set up today and I was pleased with the results. I basically mounted the camera on the top of a telescoping ski pole which I securely strapped to my pack. In the future I think I might try and put it up a little higher, it was a fun experiment nonetheless.

Mt. Tallac 2/22/10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

The Sherwood Shuttle Rules! and powder too!

One of the many benefits of living on the West Shore is the Alpine Meadows Sherwood Shuttle. The shuttle brings skiers up to the backside of Alpine Meadows which is roughly 3 miles up the street from my house. Today I put my boots on in the house, walked out to the corner and hopped on the 9 am shuttle to the ski area.

Its been snowing off and on for the past month or so, and yesterday there was about 10 inches of new snow, overnight it snowed another couple inches. Today I went for some of my old standby powder stashes and I was pleasantly surprised to find fresh powder everywhere I went. It snowed lightly all day and tomorrow looks to be a repeat performance of today. As long as it stays cold and keeps snowing I don't really care what happens...

At the end of the day I skied to the shuttle, rode it down to the corner near my house and walked the daunting 100 feet home. Unfortunately the shuttle only runs on weekends, but it sure is a pleasure to use it from time to time.

Here's a few clips from today...

The sherwood shuttle rules! from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Its here.

The big one has arrived. Reportedly bringing as many at 10 feet of new snow to the higher elevations of Tahoe, the storm of the century is upon us. It was an incredible day at Alpine Meadows yesterday, see attached clips of video, and another incredible day of skiing at Squaw Valley today. The winds kept most of Alpine on lock down today, with Summit Chair not even turning all day long. Interestingly, some of the best skiing of the day was in the late afternoon. The high winds and heavy snow combined for some really great wind buffed conditions that improved throughout the day. Anyway, check out these two clips from yesterday. I broke the mount for my POV cam, so here is attempt number one of the camera in the hand...

1/18/2010 a couple clips from Alpine from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

And the warm spell continues...

Our unseasonably warm conditions continue, and they have been accompanied by afternoon rain showers for the past 2 days. Our snowpack is holding up surprisingly well, but near lake level, and especially on the south faces, its melting so fast you can almost see it go. No more than 10 days ago we were skiing powder and had been for some time. This short video is from the 2 days before Christmas. My Gopro POV camera was working only intermittently, so I didn't capture all the action, but I sure had a great time.

December powder skiing at Alpine Meadows from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

This video is from the two days leading up to New Years. Again I was having a bit of trouble with my filming equipment, but the skiing was so great that I didn't really care.

Jeremy Benson skiing at Alpine Meadows 12/30+31/2009 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Thank goodness for all the snow we got over the holidays or we'd be hurting around here right now, and it was really fun while it lasted.

South Jakes corn laps

Staying on the June-uary theme, today I headed down to Emerald Bay to do a little backcountry skiing in one of the most scenic places on earth. I had the entire South side of Jakes peak to myself for most of the day. South Jakes is one of my go-to spots for spring conditions when there is good enough coverage. The photo below is of the South side of Jakes peak with mediocre coverage from a couple of weeks ago.

Located about 18 miles from my house its a no-brainer to head down there for smooth 2,000 foot corn runs. From the car to the top takes anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half depending on the conditions. Today I took 2 runs, one on the south facing chute in the middle of the picture and one on the far lookers right skyline. It just so happens that I strapped on my GoPro POV cam for a few turns. Now please be aware that nothing extreme or gnarly occurs in this video, but the skiing was good and smooth, and look at the lake and emerald bay, at times it feels like you might fall into it.

January Corn skiing from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.