Squaw Valley is the most filled in I’ve ever seen it in march. Â Granted, I haven’t been here that long, but this year has been amazing. Â The fingers look like they did in 2011 and ride like mini alaskan spines. Â Its so filled in a lot of the cool rocks and exposed lines are gone, or are considerably mellower than previous years.
After seeing that squaw had been dumped on 3 feet and was closed for the day, a friend convinced me we had to leave jackson, drive 13 hours in a slow, full size van back to California to catch the tail end of the storm. Â We arrived monday night, charged cameras and fell asleep in order to wake up at 5:30 and line up at KT for the imminent fingers race that morning.
Squaw was able to get KT open at a reasonable time and the race was on! Â I was 4th chair and had planned on skiing hatchets line, but when I dropped in from the starting tree, a guy cut into my line from lower down. Â I wasn’t bummed though, just had to bump over to the gnarlier spine to my left that i had not planned on sending. Â The whole mountain opened that day minus headwall… but the reverse traverse was open. Â We skied siberia, granite, and KT and pretty much tired ourselves out by 2pm.
The next day the palisades and the chimney opened and it was ripping! Â I dropped into the chimney for the first time and was suprised how mellow it was (only beause the snow levels have basically covered all the chutes and rocks). Â It was awesome, but soon after got baked by the warm weather.
