Report from March 13, 2025

We woke up at 6 am today completely confused about what to do…

Backcountry or Palisades Tahoe?

We agonized for about 30 minutes then finally decided on backcountry when we heard that it snowed about 32″ overnight up top and there was a slight chance of lightning and thunder this afternoon.

The UC Berkeley Snow Lab on Donner Summit reported 27″ in 24 hours.

We knew it would be hard to open the mountain with that much snow in that short time, and if lightning showed up, it would close the mountain down.

Deep, dry snow covered the Lake Tahoe basin.

We were hiking by 8 am.

On top after about 1.5 hours.

We ran into some local legends on the hill and enjoyed a quick catch-up.

We dropped into fluffy, dry, blower powder and started laughing.

The upper mountain skied like a dream.

The mid-mountain was even deeper than the upper mountain.

The lower mountain was a bit weird and we were hitting bottom quite a bit but it was still damn fun.

We were freaking out happy at the bottom.

We slapped our skins back on and climbed back up for another.

The second lap was even better than the first.

The warmth of the day was already changing the snow and things were getting a touch more gloppy, especially down low.

We decided to do one more half-lap and head home.

Front Street Pizza was delicious.

I went Spicy Thai Chicken and Hawaiian.

Both great but next time I’m just getting 2 Spicy Thai Chicken slices.

So damn good…

Thanks, California!

Photos