Squaw Valley Powder Day Report:

Squaw Valley reported that they received 7″ of snow on Sunday night and Monday.  The entire mountain was closed, more or less, yesterday leaving us all of Siberia, Headwall, Solitude, Shirley Lake, and Granite Chief fresh for the taking.

We showed up at 8:30am, it was mostly sunny, and there were very few people in line for the Funitel.

At the top of the Funi, people seemed to chose between going straight to Sibo-Reverse Traverse-Headwall or Granite Chief.  We chose Emigrant to Granite and it was pretty great in spots.  Icy moguls were sticking out of the fresh snow in many spots, but if you found a smooth line, it was fun.

After we mined all the smooth spots on Granite, we tried Shirley and found the zone under the Funnel smooth, fast, and fun.

As we were riding up Shirley after a few laps, we saw patrol skiing down the Funnel – Rob Gaffney’s favorite run at Squaw – and we skied up to the patroller.  He announced that he was going to open the Funnel on his next lap.  Naturally, we followed him up and we’re stoked to be first ones in the Funnel.  We did two laps and hooted a bunch.

Solitude’s Rainbow Bowl was good.  Siberia was funky and ungroomed with icy moguls.  We never did do the Reverse Traverse, but Headwall/CII must have been good because The Andy Hays did a bunch of runs there in the morning.  We were too lazy to do the big lap all the way to the bottom and ride the Funi back up.

By about noon the snow was getting pretty heavy and it started snowing hard.  Stick to your goggles snow.  We ended up skiing down the mountain run at about 1pm and around the base of Headwall the snow turned to rain.

Overall it was a great day with some fun snow.  Stoked to get in one more powder day.  Could it be the last?  How much longer will Squaw/Alpine stay open?  We’ll have to wait and see…

RECORD HEAT ON THE WAY TO TAHOE: