Report from Friday the 13th, December, 2024

Friday the 13th always seems to have a little luck in it, doesn’t it?

Fox and I got out into the backcountry of Lake Tahoe, California, kinda early today without a clear picture of what we were gonna find out there.

After 2 weeks of zero hiking, it was time to try.

We were pleased to find about 6-12″ of spongey, warm snow covering the peaks.

The bad news was that since we’d been in this zone last, the snowpack had melted down considerably.

We dropped in feeling optimistic, but despite my best dodging skills, I hit quite a few rocks on our first run.

That first run was east, so we trained our focus to the north to see if that was holding snow better.

It was!

The 2nd run was much more dreamy, with only one rock strike.

The only bummer was I was out on my new Meier “Leeper” skis for the very first time and I caused them harm…

Fortunately, all my rock encounters only left a few shallow scratches.

Whew!

Back at the car, we were stoked to have gotten away with some fun powder skiing and minimal ski damage.

The new “Leeper” ski was super floaty, very turny, and damn fun.

I haven’t been on a ski this big (192cm) for over 10 years.

Good times!

Thanks, California and Thanks, Robb!

Photos