Some hidden powder turns

It was another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Sunny skies and high pressure prevailed so my girlfriend Lynn Kennen and I headed down to Mt. Tallac to see if there was any cold snow left after last weeks freak 6 inch storm. While the winds were howling due to the low pressure system that is pushing onshore we made the best of the sunny day and enjoyed comfortable hiking conditions the whole way. In this photo Lynn makes her way accross North Bowl with the west shore and lake Tahoe beaming behind her. It was Lynn's first day on her new Dynafit ski bindings, and a mellow run down something smooth would've been a great way to try them out. I talked her into dropping into the cross and checking out my favorite line on Tallac, the Babycham. She snapped a couple shots of me dropping in, and it was good, real good. This chute is way steeper than you might guess by looking at this photo, note that her ski tip appears in the lower left corner, that is because she is looking straight down... Again I would like to thank everyone that didn't drop in on this line in the last three days, you must know that I love fresh turns.If you look closely in the photo below you can see me further down the chute and in the sun. It was a beautiful day, and a day well spent in the mountains with my lady. Chamonix here we come!

Milking it.

With daytime highs forecasted in the mid to upper fifties our most recent snow is changing quickly from powder to something other than powder. This transitional phase began in earnest yesterday and is going to continue for the next several days. Never one to give up on the remaining powder I headed up to Mt. Tallac today with my buddy Jon to see if we could find any of that vanishing powder. Lucky for us the Emerald Bay road had been closed and nobody had gone anywhere near any of the lines we wanted to ski today. 2 days after the storm and we had our pick of all of our favorite lines. In the photo below, Jon drops into a completely fresh Babycham with possibly the most heroic powder conditions I've ever seen. We followed that up with the Hanging snowfield and corkscrew, respectively, and both enjoyed more perfect conditions down each line.

After skiing such incredible snow we decided on another lap off the top and headed back up. We dropped into the steep entrance of the Cross and enjoyed a continuous 3,000 foot run of creamy but somewhat variable powder. It was especially fun for me since I have never entered the Cross from this particular spot, and doing something new is always fun for me. The cold powder snow changed significantly throughout the course of our day on Tallac, and unfortunately it seems like we may have milked it for all that it was worth. However, all is not lost, since we live in California we'll be skiing corn in just a matter of days....

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...

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.

Mt. Tallac with Jason Abraham

A few days ago I headed up Mt. Tallac with Jason Abraham to see if we could find some good snow. At the time it hadn't snowed in probably 9 days or so, and the typical route down was so heavily skied it was almost moguls. The snow on south faces was perfect corn, and on the north and northeast faces we found some great shallow powder. We were hoping to snap a few photos, so we decided to head over to the south side of the mountain, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that side of the mountain almost completely untracked. Thanks to everyone out there who skis in everyone else's tracks....Coverage on Tallac is the best it has been a couple years, all of the really gnarly lines are filled in really well. While we didn't opt for the really aggressive skiing that day, the open powder slopes we found offered up some great snow conditions and worked well for getting a few pictures... It was Abro's first day on Tallac, and he just got a tiny taste of the possibilities that are up there.
We had another relaxed but successful photo day and it seems like we're on a roll. It is snowing lightly here in Tahoe again, and our weather looks unsettled for the next couple weeks. Bring it on!