Report from February 24, 2024

Hot.

Heat.

Hot heat.

Fox was racing uphill after our late 10am start.

We’d purposely started late to let the corn grow tall, but we underestimated how hot it would be.

I was wearing shorts and a T-Shirt and ski pants and I was dying.

Sweat poured through my eyebrows and onto the lenses of my sunglasses.

It dripped off my temples.

My shirt began to grow large dark spots on the chest, armpits, and back.

Fox was unrelenting.

No breaks, full-speed, steep skin track.

There was no wind.

I was climbing at near my 100%.

We summited about 15 minutes faster than usual and took a break.

I never cooled down and decided to simply ski down in my T-shirt.

I’d chosen a chute I’d never skied before.

I love that after 23 years of skiing Lake Tahoe, there are still chutes and zones I’ve never skied.

I geared up and dropped in.

The snow was a deep corn that splashed and sprayed.

I coated the rock walls of the chute with slush as I gleefully slashed through tight spots.

After about 10 turns the chute jogs left revealing the lake and all its blues and hues.

Once the chute proper ended there were still about 1,000-vertical-feet of great corn to ski down to the bottom.

Fox and I used the stoked hooting technique of communication and found each other down in the trees.

We exchanged stokery and laughs.

We stopped at Tahoma Market PDQ for monster $16 sandwiches and rolled home happy.

Another stunner in Lake Tahoe.

Thanks, California!

Photos