Squaw Valley is the most filled in I’ve ever seen it in march. Granted, I haven’t been here that long, but this year has been amazing. The fingers look like they did in 2011 and ride like mini alaskan spines. Its so filled in a lot of the cool rocks and exposed lines are gone, or are considerably mellower than previous years.
After seeing that squaw had been dumped on 3 feet and was closed for the day, a friend convinced me we had to leave jackson, drive 13 hours in a slow, full size van back to California to catch the tail end of the storm. We arrived monday night, charged cameras and fell asleep in order to wake up at 5:30 and line up at KT for the imminent fingers race that morning.
Squaw was able to get KT open at a reasonable time and the race was on! I was 4th chair and had planned on skiing hatchets line, but when I dropped in from the starting tree, a guy cut into my line from lower down. I wasn’t bummed though, just had to bump over to the gnarlier spine to my left that i had not planned on sending. The whole mountain opened that day minus headwall… but the reverse traverse was open. We skied siberia, granite, and KT and pretty much tired ourselves out by 2pm.
The next day the palisades and the chimney opened and it was ripping! I dropped into the chimney for the first time and was suprised how mellow it was (only beause the snow levels have basically covered all the chutes and rocks). It was awesome, but soon after got baked by the warm weather.
