Conditions Report
Report from March 3-9, 202
Palisades Tahoe, California, is my home.
It’s where my heart lives.
I spent 18 seasons here before moving to Park City, UT, in 2018, and I long to come back every day.
This place shaped me as a man and a skier.
It forged my career and gave me a skillset that has translated into an ability to ski all over the world, and I’m forever grateful.
I spent 20 years building a community here, and that group of humans shows up for me every time I come back.
Honestly, I can barely get on a chairlift here without running into someone I know.
I drove 8 hours and 586 miles across the desert from Park City, UT, to Olympic Valley, CA, on Tuesday, sliding in thrashed and crooked at KT-22 at 2:19 pm.
Right away, I saw Dougman, the long-time Le Chamois bartender, who yelled at me and gave me a big hug.
Before we’d even started downhill, materializing out of the ether were the legends Tom & Lizzy Day, Uncle E, Matty Reardon, Aaron Strum, Gunnar Newquist (cover of Squallywood: The Book), and more.
I was starstruck and comforted.
They knew right where to go, so we followed the last photons of sun onto the East Face bump line.
I tried but couldn’t keep up with Dougman and Matty.
Years of KT laps have sculpted these beings into smooth, efficient, snow-sliding machines.
Each bump jarred my bones and threw me off my line.
Those same bumps disappeared effortlessly into seamless absorptive turns under these snow humans.
I laughed as I thought out loud, “If I just never traveled anywhere and skied here every day, I’d be a better skier than I am now.”
It was true and they knew it.
After three East Face laps, we heard the west-facing Rock Garden had opened up, and the whole crew mobbed in, knifing through the tight choke point guarded by an old stump on the left like plinko balls.
The deep, soft bumps challenged my skiing and left me glad to be back on the groomer.
On our fourth run together, we ran into the fabled patroller J Mac, who was threatening to open the West Face, arguably the best run off KT-22.
He poked down, grabbing and twisting closed signs as he flew.
We followed cautiously.
My old buddy Yimmers serendipitously showed up just at that moment.
After ripping a handful of turns down the face proper, J Mac gently stated, “This is open.”
We tore into it, relishing the snow on the 39.8º pitch, the perfect angle for kicking back and allowing gravity to do the work for you.
Two more runs were feasted upon before the final bell whistled at 4 pm, sending good friends scattering to the wind like fading embers in the twilight.
I walked through the door of my place with a shit-eating grin.
I was back, my friends were here, and I had a week to drink it all in.
The rest of the week went by like a blur.
“Backflip #4!” said the text from Aaron Fox the next morning.
Once I finally got out of the house, Fox pushed me straight into hucking meat in the terrain park despite the rock-hard conditions.
He had a jump he liked, and I knuckled it so hard on my first try that I wanted to go home right then.
But I didn’t.
Fox always inspires me to push my comfort zone, and this day was no exception.
I came back around to the jump and watched Carson throw a stupendously huge Flat 3 Japan Grab and sail away into the light.
Fox laced an obnoxiously calm backflip, stirring something inside me.
It was my job to straight-air the jump again, clear the landing, then move on to 360s and eventually a backflip if all went well.
But my insides had been stirred.
I serenely adjusted my goggles, lined up the jump, and dropped in with speed.
I blacked out, and when I came to, I was upside down, spotting my landing, pulling the landing gear around, feeling the crack of the firm snow, and skiing away.
My first backflip of the trip.
Thanks, Fox.
Fox chalked up nine and I got in three.
We were enthralled.
Fox called it a day, and I chased my wife around for a few runs in the fading daylight and chatting her ear off, knowing I was in the place that makes me smile the most.
The next highlight was on Sunday, when Jason Dobbs made me ski seven Slot laps off Headwall until I was too tired for me.
Despite having exactly zero ACLs, Dobbs skied like a demon and made me look like a chubby cherub.
The Slot skied like the California springtime dream it always knew it could be.
Fast forward one day, and Fox and I were back at it in the Gold Coast park yesterday.
This time, the thermometer was in the 50s, the snow was soft, and our jump had a new lip that made hitting it feel like throwing yourself off a blind cliff.
“I’m in the park right now and I have zero courage and that jump we were hitting looks scary,” I wrote to Fox in the morning.
I sent him a photo of the terrifying lip and all he wrote back was, “It’s money.”
Damn.
He was going to make me jump again.
On my first drop, I chickened out and banked a hard right, skipping off the edge of the ramp.
On my second, I started farther back and cleared it.
“Game on,” I thought.
I came back and got in a 360. Then another.
Then a backflip right to the sweet spot and I felt my fear fly away like a loose hat on a windy day.
One more backie, then Fox showed up and started teeing off.
Backflip after unconsciously smooth backflip.
I mostly filmed him, but got in a couple more flips and a spin.
Then Fox went huge and landed way past Gucci Plateau (the smoothest part of the landing) and made it look like nothing.
“I want one of those!” I yelled at him.
I came back up and sent one last backie with Fox filming on the lip.
I started 30 feet back from where I started for my first jump of the day and pointed it.
It was my biggest of the day and the slow-mo video came out really fun.
We giggled and laughed, snorted and snickered, and knew we had to go straight home and not look back.
Thanks, California.
