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.

Icefall Lodge

3 weeks ago I got a call to go on a trip up to the Icefall Lodge north of Golden, BC for a magazine article. Since I had pretty much nothing going on at the time I said "yes" to this and planned my travel last minute to meet the crew for this once in a lifetime adventure. The Icefall Lodge is BC's newest backcountry lodge and offers access to the highest peaks and largest skiable terrain of any lodge in BC. I met Rico (the writer), Doug (the photographer), Jeff (skier), Erica (skier), and Jimmy (Rico's buddy) at a motel in Golden the night before we headed out to the lodge. We drove about 40 minutes north of Golden, BC to rendezvous with the helicopter for a lift into the lodge. We ditched our cars and jumped in the helicopter for a 20 minute flight straight to heaven. After flying past hundreds of mountains we finally rounded the cornner and caught our first glimpse of the lodge. In the photo below you can just make out the lodge directly in the middle of the shot nestled in the trees to the left of the most prominent avalanche path.
This shot is slightly closer to the lodge and shows the several structures that Icefall Lodge has. The old lodge is off to the right and the new lodge is the larger building to the left. As you can see, the Icefall Lodge is situated in the heart of some awesome ski terrain. Three feet of snow fell in the 2 days prior to our arrival and the skiing was incredibly good the entire time we were there.Here's the view from the 2nd floor of the lodge with another load being brought in from the heli. The heli pad is about 20 feet from the building making for some really dramatic heli drops. Sometimes we'd even start our ski runs from the heli pad in the morning.
Here's the main Icefall Lodge from the heli pad. This lodge is about 2 years old and has more than doubled the capacity and comfort level at Icefall. The building is three stories tall with a drying room and the woodstove on the ground floor, kitchen and dining area on the 2nd floor, and bedrooms on the 3rd floor. It is important to note that this roof was great for jumping off and Jeff and I took advantage of that later in the week. Our group stayed in the old lodge which was about 100 feet to the right of this one and was no less comfortable, just smaller... In the photo below people are getting ready to head out for a clear day of powder skiing.Our first day at the lodge was spent skiing powder around the lodge getting a feel for the snow and terrain. Our second day broke bluebird and we headed off to the Lyell hut which iss located about 8 kilometers and 4500 vertical feet from the Icefall Lodge. The basis for the article is the hut to hut traverse that is an option at Icefall. There are actually three huts operated by Icefall lodge including the Icefall, Lyell, and Mons huts. The Lyell and Mons huts are at much higher elevation than the Icefall and are both located near some serious glaciated terrain. So we set off with the goal of reaching the Lyell hut. We hiked up into the alpine and got some incredible views on our way...Early morning in January lends itself to some long shadows. Here we're looking at Mt. LaClytte and our route towards the Lyell Icefield. Lots of terrain up here.Hours later and we're almost up to the col (pass) where we'll head over a ridge and onto the Lyell Icefield. In the photo below Rico, Jimmy, and Erica make their way up the skin track towards Crampon Col. The views of the mountains only got more incredible the higher we got.Jeff Annetts nears Crampon Col after hours of hiking through some unbelievable mountains and glaciated terrain. One the other side of the low spot on the lookers right is the Lyell Icefield.After going up and over the Crampon Col we hiked straight across the Lyell Icefield and up the Lyell Hut. In the photo below lodge owner Larry Dolecki takes the last few steps towards the Lyell hut. This hut sits at about 10,000 feet just west of the continental divide. The lodge is quite rustic but it has a propane heater and stove making it surprisingly comfortable, even when its -10 degrees outside...We spent the night at the Lyell hut and headed out for a ski the next day. It was really, really cold the next day and the winds had picked up making for some barely tolerable temperatures. We decided on a quick and easy objective in Lyell 5 or Christian Peak, 11,154 ft. We made quick work of this summit and decided to head back to the Icefall lodge for some more deep powder skiing and more comfortable temperatures. While the Lyell hut was truly incredible, the snow and weather conditions were not ideal for us to stay there and get photos. Another storm was rolling in and we had some powder to ski... In the photo below you can see the amazing scenery as well as people swinging their legs in an effort to prevent frostbite to their toes... This was the coldest I have been in years.

After another long day of touring to get back to the lodge we found ourselves back at Icefall and sweet comfort. Here's a shot of the second floor of the lodge. The kitchen is just out of sight to the right and the common area/dining area is where everyone is sitting.Just downstairs from the dining area/kitchen is the drying room and wood stove. This wood stove keeps the entire three story building warm with no problems. There is a drying room for your boots and gear that can accommodate everyone's gear and then some. Directly out in front of the door is the heli pad and the start of some of the ski runs.We were getting absolutely dumped on while we were up there, almost 4 feet of snow fell while were there, on top of three feet the week before! The conditions were incredible for shooting ski photos and just begged for the obligatory roof huck. Since the building was three stories high we figured the roof jump was about 30 feet. We also jumped off the other roofs, but the main lodge had the best landing and biggest drop. Getting onto the roof was scarier than jumping off it. This ladder was straight up and climbing it in plastic ski boots was no easy task. After climbing up we had to pull our skis up on a rope as seen in the photo below.

All around the lodge was great skiing, and since the snow kept coming the skiing only got better and better. We enjoyed the pillows, trees, and chutes that were easily accessible from the lodge and played it safe with the increasing avalanche danger. Luckily the lodge has a good deal of protected tree skiing that is right near the lodge, we had plenty to do while it was storming... In the photo below Rico (look closely) shreds the crap shoot in epic conditions.

We were busy shooting photos most of the time, but Jeff and I found some fun cliffs to jump off of. I'm pretty sure we got some good shots for the magazine, but I could barely see anything the whole time we were there since the snow was so deep, so I'm not really sure. In the photo below Jeff takes a little air...
Jeff Annetts get a deep turn in some of the pillow near the lodge. I didn't take too many pictures of the skiing since we had a professional photographer with us the whole time, but this photo is a good representation of what the skiing was like the whole time. Deep, some of the deepest snow I have ever skied.After days and days of heavy snowfall we finally got to see the raw power of mother nature. While we were skiing in the trees, to avoid avalanche terrain, an enormous avalanche swept down the Kitchen Chute just feet from where we were skiing. It was an unexpected and shocking thing to have happen, and luckily we were all well within the old growth trees for just that reason. I've never been that close to an avalanche this big and it definitely was a little scary. The photo below shows the avalanche path and just how close we were to it. There's 20 foot tall trees in the debris... Not only was this scary but it was also awesome to see something like this up close while being completely safe and out of its way. My trip to Icefall could not have been any better. It was definitely one the best trip I've been on in years. I can't wait to go back, there's so much more to explore...

Volkl Skis

After six years with Elan skis I've switched ski sponsors to Volkl Skis and Marker Bindings. This is a great switch for me since I've always loved the way Volkls ski. I got a pair of Katanas and pair of Gotamas. I took my Katanas out for a few laps on Hidden Peak the other day while it was storming and it appears that they ski Powder very well. Avalanche Danger was really high so we kept it in the trees and took three really fun runs. Keep the snow coming!!!!

First run on my new Katanas from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

November 10, 2010 Powder day?

Just the third day of the winter with snow on the ground and we're already skiing POW!

A little settlement coupled with another foot on top made for some great early season turns. Mike Vaughan and I went back to Alpine and hiked around for a few hours. I made a little video.

11/10/2010 Alpine Meadows from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Back at it!

Welcome back to fall. Its been a long summer for me. Since the beginning of June I've been working like a madman to pay off last winter and prepare for the coming one. The colors are changing, temps are dropping, the ground is wet, and the mountain biking has been just incredible for the past month. We've finally made it to magazine season and I've recently found some published shots from last season. The Skiing Magazine Gear guide came out and I found 2 shots of me and a shot of Lynn in there.Here's a half page of me on P.17A full page on Pg. 27.
Lynn scored a full page shot on P.57. It was good issue of Skiing for the two of us. Be sure to check out the Skiing Magazine gear guide for the most legitimate ski test in the industry.We also got the most recent issue of Mountain Sports and Living Magazine where there was another full page shot of me at Alpine Meadows in their resort guide. The day we shot this photo at Alpine Meadows was a great day of skiing and we were lucky to have been able to get a shot like this.

Happy Birthday to me

As usual on my birthday I headed out to go and get some turns on snow to celebrate the fact that I am now older than I used to be. This year was no exception and I went out to get some of the sweet pow that has been falling over the past month. We headed down south to the High Sierra to get our powder fix and we eneded up at Tioga Pass which was open for the first time this year. We hiked up Mt. Dana and headed straight to the Solstice Couloir for some steep pow. This is what the entrance to the Solstice looked like... That cliff under the spine of snow was over 50 feet tall and pretty intimidating to drop in on... I cut a big notch into the cornices so we could side slip in and it was pretty manageable after that.Here's what our entrance looked like after the cornices got chopped away, again the cliff beneath me is over 50 feet, and the cornice to the right is probably 25 feet tall. Once on this slope everything was great and it was powder for 2,000 vertical feet. May 29th might be the latest I've ever skied powder...
Here's a shot looking up the line I just skied down. You can see my tracks on the left of the frame, and you can see how massive the cornice we had to drop beneath was, it was huge! The tiny notch you see on the ridge is the notch that I chopped out of the cornice with my ski, and you can see the cliff we were above while dropping in. Exhilarating to say the least.
After scaring the crap out of ourselves dropping into the solstice couloir we hiked over to the Powerhouse chutes. In the photo below Pat makes a big slash on the dust on crust pow heading down to the car we parked for this shuttle run. It was pretty good snow...
Mike Vaughan and I decided to drop into a different line in the Powerhouse zone and Mike went first and ripped it. I didn't ski this as fast as he did, I was impressed.
The next day, 5/30/10, we went down to South Lake to ski the couloirs on Mt. Thompson. Pat, Je, and Mike had never skied Thompson before so I put in a nice bootpack, thn realized I needed to ski neighboring Mt. Gilbert and headed that way to ski a new line in epic conditions. It was a beautiful, albeit warm day, I guess it gets warm this time of year...
After skiing a quick run on Mt. Thompson I booted up the north couloir of Mt. Gilbert by myself to take another line off my growing list. It was steep, possibly the steepest line I skied all year in the Sierra. In the photo below I am standing straight up, so the chute below is how steep?...
No one was watching as I skied this, but it was among the steeper things I skied all year, and those are definitely some of the shortest turns I made this season. There was a lot of snow moving and getting caught in my own slough was not how I wanted to celebrate my birthday...
Overall, I was really happy to have finally skied this line, I've been in this area so many times and not skied it... The conditions were good, although a little sketchy, and for May 30th, probably the best conditions I've ever had... This is one for the books, I don't think I'll ever ski powder this late in the year ever again...not on a line like this
Happy Birthday to me, nothing in the world makes me feel like skiing something like this.

The winter that will never end

Since I last posted about my adventures on snow it has continued to snow and snow and snow here in Lake Tahoe. All the resorts have been closed for almost two weeks and our snow pack has only increased in that time. With Lynn being injured I've been staying close to home and trying to get out skiing as much as my work schedule will allow. There is very limited mountain biking to be done since all of the good trails in the area are still snow bound and will remain that way for some time. Lots of people are "over it" around here, but those who are willing to enjoy whatever mother nature has to throw at them are still out getting it good in the mountains throughout the state of California.

Luckily for my friends and I, we are of the mind that when there is snow, you go skiing. This is especially true when there is powder, and even more so when there is powder in late May. The other day my friend Joe and I headed out to Ward Valley(my backyard) and found great skiing conditions on all aspects, including powder on north facing terrain. In the photos above and below Joe enjoys some of the best May powder turns he's ever had.

Today was quite similar, it started raining at lake level last night and we got another 6 inches or so of new snow up high. I skied a few laps up at Alpine and, considering the time of year, I was pleasantly surprised by the conditions. It was snowing hard all day and looks to keep up through the day tomorrow.... Looks like tomorrow might be another powder day. The only drawback to getting all this new snow this time of year is that as soon as the sun comes out, it is all over for a couple days, nothing escapes the sun and it's radiant warmth this time of year.

Mt. Thomson

After our big day on Whitney and Russell, Oscar and I chose to head up to South Lake to enjoy some good snow conditions. The South Lake area has some of the easiest late spring access in the range, and generally speaking, peaks lower than 14,000 feet have better snow conditions... The lake was frozen solid so we cruised right accross it on our way to ski Mt. Thomson. A little while later and we're right below the awesome north/northeast facing chutes on Mt Gilbert on the left and Mt Thompson on the right. The summit of Mt. Thompson is about 13,400 feet, and the bench we are hiking across is about 12,000. I'd never skied on either of these peaks before, so we headed for the trident(three chutes) on Mt. Thompson. In the photo below I'm skining toward the base of Mt. Thompson, and I am glad to be there. After skinning as far as we could I set a nice bootpack up the mellowest of the three chutes. This bootpack would come in handy once we decided to ski all three chutes that day, the snow was so good we just had to...The first chute I chose to drop in on was the skiers left. The wind had created a funky rock/cornice crux that had to be negotiated to enter from the top. I suppose I could have downclimbed this with my skis off, but I felt the need to spice it up a little. Definitely the most difficult moves I had to make that day.After entering the chute safely, phew..., I enjoyed some of the best snow I've ever experienced in the High Sierra. Top to bottom, great snow, I'm pretty sure I hooted and hollered at least three times during my first run, and second run, and my third run too. After we successfully tracked out the chutes on Mt. Thompson we enjoyed the long run back down to South Lake. The snow was great the whole way.... It was an awesome day in the mountains, and after two 8 hour days in a row I felt the need to take a day of rest...

Whitney and Russell in a day

Last week I headed back down south to meet up with some friends and ski some more peaks down on the east side of the sierra. Last Sunday I hooked up with Oscar, Andrew, Allison and John to try and tackle Mt. Whitney and Mt. Russell in the same day. Since both of these peaks are over 14,000 feet tall, it was sure to be a big day. We started in the dark at about 5:30 am, I shot this photo about a half hour into our ascent just as the sun was rising. After about an hour we caught a great view of our first objective. The summit of Mt. Whitney isn't too far from our break spot here. I was surprised how easy and quick it was to get back here...
A little while later and we're still headed up, the Owen's Valley sits almost 10,000 feet below us. At this point we're about to head into the Mountaineer's Route to start the steeper part of the ascent.
This shot is looking down the Mountaineer's Route from the top of the snow. This day was one of the windiest days I've ever spent in the mountains. The wind was so strong that it was actually blowing us over. I physically got blown over at least 4 times this day. From the top of the Mountaineer's Route chute there is a technical mixed snow and rock climb onto the summit Plateau. It took us about 5 hours to reach the summit from the Whitney Portal parking area. Once on the summit plateau it is completely flat, creating an interesting juxtaposition to the sheer cliffs that make up the eastern face of the mountain.
Since it was so windy we were freezing cold on the summit. We quickly made our way to our descent route which was not the way we had ascended. Normally people ski down the mountaineer's route, since we had the plan to ski Mt. Russell, we descended the north side of Mt. Whitney into the basin between the 2 peaks. In the photo below you can see our descent route, kinda. Its a little hard to tell how we linked this face together, but it was actually pretty easy...
As I might have mentioned, it was windy, in this photo, Oscar skis the north side of Whitney, you can see the snow being blown up and over the ridge behind him. It was brutally cold on the ridge, and this wind was relentless. Once we got down the face and into the basin between Whitney and Russell it was much more tolerable and pleasant.
Our next objective was to get as high up Mt. Russell as possible. Since gaining the summit from any interesting ski line on the peak involves technical rock climbing we chose to ski from the highest skiable point. The photo below shows Mt. Russell as seen from the summit of Mt. Whitney. Our line is the ribbon of snow that makes it close to the summit. Truly a beautiful mountain, not much in the way of sweet skiing, but I hear there are some incredible big wall rock climbs up there.
We climbed straight up the line we wanted to ski, and you can see the north side of Mt. Whitney behind us. We were all psyched to be out of the wind and took our time climbing our 2nd 14er of the day.
And dropping. Jon drops in on the weird snow on Mt. Russell. Jon is a machine and he skied 12 of the 14 peaks above 14,000 feet in the state of California in the past month. Unfortunately he broke his leg after being hit by rockfall just the other day so completing his 14er mission might have to wait til next season...

Tioga Pass

On the third day of our trip down south we headed up to Tioga Pass to ski a line that I've been looking at for years. While this may technically be the end of the Dana Plateau, I refer to this peak as North Gibbs. The line we went to ski is on the lookers left skyline right off the peak. The ascent route to access this line is a little different than climbing up to the plateau like you would to ski the coke chute, the ripper, the third pillar, or kidney lake. Instead of climbing the coke chute we headed up the chute to the lookers left, right above Oscar's head in the photo below.
After skining up to the base of the chute we switched to crampons to boot up the firm snow. After topping out on the chute we still had a ways to go.
Coming out of the chute the pitch eased back a little and we were able to skin to the top of North Gibbs. In the photo below Oscar climbs with Mono Lake and Tioga Pass Road in the background. Another beautiful day!
After several big days in the High Sierra we were wiped out and happy to reach the top of our line. I've been looking at this one for years so I got to ski it fresh. Oscar captured a good shot of me dropping into this one... This line was huge, once it goes out of view it just goes on and on, I'm glad to have finally skied this.
While we were on the top of North Gibbs we looked over at the north side of South Gibbs, and it looks good. I think we may have found a few more things to hit the next time we're down in that area... Another great day down in the High Sierra, spring in California, does it get any better?