“Quick ‘n’ Dirty” Squaw Conditions Report: One Last Spring Skiing Day Before the Big Storm Today was another spring day, just like we’ve had all month. Firm in the morning and soft by 10am on east faces, 1pm for west faces. I expected the rain to come all day, but it never came. Other than that it was a fun spring conditions day at Squaw. I had the most fun on West Face in the afternoon. Oly Lady […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | March 4, 2016 0 Comments
“Quick ‘n’ Dirty” Squaw Valley Conditions Report + Photo Tour: Chalk & Corn Harvest Yesterday (Feb 22) was a sleeper amazing super fun day at Squaw. Sun, blue skies, no crowds, babes everywhere and amazing conditions. There is still phenomenal chalky snow in some north and west facing aspects. Magoos, Funnel, North Bowl (the bottom 70%), Alternate 75 and Headwall Face were all great. The Palisades (sans Chimney) and Granite peak were both opened […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | February 23, 2016 0 Comments
“Quick n’ Dirty” Squaw Valley Conditions Report: “Heaviest Sierra Cement I’ve Ever Skied” “The ‘fresh’ was some of the heaviest Sierra cement I’ve ever skied. Got better once it was skied up a bit. Saw tons of people falling, especially early on when they ventured into the untouched. Overall, pretty fun for a 2.5 hour ski day. Also, sounded like Chinese New Year with all the bombs going off.” – Guy LaDouche Squaw […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | February 19, 2016 2 Comments
Sugar Bowl, CA Conditions Report + Photo Tour: The Most Snow in California Report from Friday, January 22nd, 2016 Our usual North Lake Tahoe ski areas were crippled by wind on Friday, so we went and looked for some alternatives. Sugar Bowl Resort did not disappoint with pretty much all lifts running (with the exception of Summit). While the snow off piste was quite heavy and punchy, all of the groomed runs were […] Guy LaDouche | January 25, 2016 1 Comment
‘Quick n’ Dirty’ Squaw Valley Conditions Report: Rain to Snow “After what was probably the worst day of the season yesterday due to rain to the top of KT, I had very low expectations for today. Down low by Red Dog it was sheet ice, but up high the snow was surprisingly awesome. It was wind packed powder on exposed faces like the funnel and nice chalky snow all over […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | January 21, 2016 0 Comments
‘Quick n’ Dirty’ Squaw Valley Conditions Report: Best Day of the Season So Far “I have a feeling that I’ll be saying this a lot in the coming days – yesterday was the best day of the season. The upper mountain was closed (except for Gold Coast and Shirley), but KT, Red Dog and Squaw Creek had more than enough terrain to keep smiles on everyone’s faces. Fresh tracks will be had today on […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | January 7, 2016 1 Comment
Squaw Valley Looking Forward to Best Holiday Season in Years Squaw Valley USA is currently firing on all cylinders with a projected 100% terrain opening by this weekend. Yes, that includes Silverado. Yesterday (12/24), we saw moderate crowds with the entire upper mountain shut due to 4.5 FEET of new snow from the latest series of storms. With only KT-22, Red Dog, Squaw Creek and Far East running, there was […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | December 25, 2015 0 Comments
Squaw Valley Report – The Mothership Has Landed! Squaw Valley’s iconic KT-22 chair opened for the season yesterday and boy was it good. The lift was scheduled to pop at 1pm, but patrol and the ops team managed to have it ready for an early start and we were riding the chair shortly after 11:30am. My heart goes out to the few people who booked 1pm private lessons […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | December 16, 2015 2 Comments
Mammoth, CA Conditions Report: Bluebird Days, More Terrain Coming! Mammoth Mountain continues to deliver with phenomenal snow conditions and cover for November. I’ve seeing lots of familiar Tahoe faces around here the past 2 days which tells you something about how good it’s skiing out here. We ventured out a bit further today and found great snow under the Paranoids and some firm but chalky snow on Dave’s. Dropout […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | November 18, 2015 3 Comments
Mammoth Conditions Report: Great Coverage, Winter Snow After receiving 8-12″ of cold pow on Sunday/Monday, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area was ripping today. I thought the skiing would be decent, but underestimated the phenomenal conditions. The snow remained cold and chalky off piste most of the day and the groomers were absolutely ripping. It felt like we were skiing on cold, mid-winter snow all day. With so much terrain […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | November 17, 2015 1 Comment
Mammoth Opening Day Pow! Mammoth Mountain opened for the season today (November 5th) almost a week ahead of schedule. The original scheduled opening was November 11th, but thanks to a storm that dropped 30 inches on Mammoth earlier in the week, the lovely people at Mammoth Mountain made our powder dreams come true. They had 3 lifts spinning (Chair 1 – Broadway Express, Chair […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | November 5, 2015 1 Comment
Turoa, New Zealand VIDEO – Spring Skiing at its Best Turoa Ski Field in New Zealand has been having a spring to remember. With a solid base close to 3 meters for most of the spring, clear blue skies, and warm afternoon temps, this is some of the best spring skiing I’ve ever had. The groomers have been ripping in the mornings and the rest of the snow off piste is […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | October 22, 2015 0 Comments
Craigieburn, New Zealand – The Club Field Experience I’m gonna cut to the chase because Craigieburn is a no bullshit kind of place. If you need high-speed detachable chair lifts, ski-up Starbucks, rental skis or 5-star accommodation, this place is NOT FOR YOU. You’d probably hate it here if you could even make it up the rope tows. Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | September 1, 2015 1 Comment
Treble Cone, New Zealand Report – Wintery Snow! We arrived at Treble Cone nice and early to a beautiful blue sky and low winds. The latest snow fell 2 days before we got there, but cold temps kept the snow nice and wintery all over the mountain. The summit was still holding some heavy pow […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | September 1, 2015 2 Comments
Cardrona, New Zealand Report – Bluebird and Freestyle Heaven We were lucky to catch Cardrona on a bluebird mini pow day. They reported 7 cm overnight, but it felt much deeper in many places. I was told that they had a long stretch of cold weather prior to the storm, so the snow underneath stayed good. The best snow of the day was definitely off of Whitestar chair, which is where I spent most of the day. Valley View and Captain’s had some decent snow as well. My favorite runs were in the Arcadia chutes. The NZ Winter Games were going on all week at Cardrona and it was fun to watch qualifiers for slope […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | August 28, 2015 0 Comments
Turoa, New Zealand – Cold Pow Day with more on the way! After a series of storms that closed the top of Turoa ski field in New Zealand for a week, we were rewarded with the best snow I’ve seen here in the last 2 seasons. This series of storms came in cold, and it has remained cold (highs around -10°C/14°F), which has kept the snow quality chalky and […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | August 11, 2015 0 Comments
Turoa, New Zealand Off to a Great Start Turoa Ski Field on the North Island of New Zealand is off to a great start this season. They’ve got top to bottom skiing and riding with the Highnoon Express open for the last week. The upper mountain was closed for a couple of days in the last week due to high winds and low visibility, but today totally made up for it with 30 cms of snow in the last 24 […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | July 19, 2015 2 Comments
6 Things a Backcountry Skier Doesn’t Want to Hear About Backcountry (BC) skiers think they are better than all liftserve (LS) skiers. They ski fresh powder every run, they never wait in line, and they ski the raddest lines in the mountain range. So sometimes BC skiers get sick of hearing LS skiers talk about inbounds skiing. So if you are an LS skier, here is a list of topics to avoid when […] Guy LaDouche | June 2, 2015 9 Comments
Squaw Valley Conditions: Bluebird Pow! After 2 storms in one week that dropped 20″ of cold snow, it felt like a mid-winter Saturday at Squaw Valley today. The crowds came out strong, but people seemed to be in good spirits with the great snow conditions and weather. Siberia and Emigrant were basically doing double duty with Siberia giving access to Headwall via Reverse Traverse and Emigrant giving access to Granite off the backside. Reverse Traverse got us some great snow on North Bowl, Hogsback and Headwall […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | April 8, 2015 6 Comments
The Jaded Tahoe Local: “Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate…” I sent a text to a local Tahoe buddy of mine to see if he wanted to ski today. He’s been in Tahoe full time for the past 4 years of drought and he’s a bit burnt out on it. His response is heart-felt, sarcastic, jaded, pointed, and hilarious. This drought in California is really starting hurt peoples’ feelings… I sent a text to a local Tahoe buddy of mine to see if he wanted to ski today. He’s been in Tahoe full time for the past 4 years of drought and he’s a bit burnt out on it. His response is heart-felt, sarcastic, jaded, pointed, and hilarious. This drought in CA […] Featured Article Guy LaDouche | March 24, 2015 11 Comments