Report from January 15, 2023

Brought to you by Palisades Tahoe

Palisades Tahoe has now seen 141″ of snow since January 1, 2023.

They’ve seen 350″ of snowfall this season and it’s only mid-January…

I started out the day yesterday terrified staring at The Fingers.

I was 7th chair on KT so I knew The Fingers would be pretty beat up by the time I got there.

But I had a sneaky plan.

The Main Air Double.

I love the thing and it’s actually pretty challenging.

I raced off the chair, delved into the powder, dropped The Booger and glided to the top of The Fingers.

I hadn’t skied The Fingers since 2021 and I was scared…

I stopped at the Start Tree and took a breath or 3.

I dropped in and the light was tough.

I slashed and searched, and had a look at Middle Finger just in case someone hadn’t hit it yet…

Someone had, moved on.

On to the Main Air side of The Fingers and I was a bit lost.

I slowly slarved and found my mark.

I jumped and cut the snow to drop the chunks of snow that hadn’t slid off the cliff yet so they wouldn’t hang me up.

I then gazed over the end and saw the middle pad of the Main Air Double.

I’d never seen anything like this before.

Usually, it’s basically just ice on top of rocks and pretty flat.

Yesterday it had a 4-foot pad of snow on it on the right and on the left it had completely ripped off down to its usual ice and rock.

I was concerned that when I hit the pad it would rip off with me creating a terrific wipeout and dangerous situation with the large tumbling, broken pad.

I went for it and the pad held.

The pad held and it was dreamy.

I’ve never had the Main Air double be so smooth…

The pad was soft instead of bone-jarring and the final landing was felt like a down comforter.

It was almost anticlimactic.

When I hit this thing in 2021, it was a battle.

Yesterday, it was a dream.

I was high for about an hour after hitting this line.

I didn’t mind nor even notice the long lines.

I was lost in banter with good friends who had also survived The Fingers and were feeling fine.

From there Fox and I got into some lippy backflips and mini cliff fun.

The lines on KT eased as the day wore on but our whole crew was pretty worn down.

It’s been a helluvalotta early mornings and long ski days of late.

This season has been fire.

We called it at noon with plans to reload and recover and get back out there somewhere the next morning before dawn.

Thanks, Tahoe

SNOW NUMBERS

FORECAST