Sunny Sessions between Super Storms @ Squaw

Casey Cane |

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During the month of January 2017, over 23 feet of snow fell around the Tahoe region. After the first 10 feet, a few days of reprieve occurred over the MLK holiday. This gave time for the resorts to dig out and open more terrain…just in time for an old kid like myself to have some fun.

I’m creating this blog to give some reference on how much snow has fallen SINCE this report…the result is pure craziness for the end of January when compared to the last few years.

On Friday, I remained mostly on KT-22 with only Gold Coast and Shirley opening on the upper mountain. I scavenged all around the Nose to Fingers to Olympic Lady to Rock Garden and had an absolute blast. The Red Dog trees were on point and especially around Poulsen’s Gully. Lines on KT, however, didn’t diminish until after lunch. The rest of the day was followed up by Funitel laps with the kiddos until it hit beer ‘o’ clock.

Saturday gave us gorgeous upper mountain weather with fog sticking around the mid-KT level for most of the day. Granite opened and was spectacular except for the lift line, but that’s not really unexpected. Reverse Traverse opened up via Siberia and most of Broken Arrow but due to my limited schedule I stuck mostly to KT to maximize turns.

Sunday came along with another stunning upper mountain day with Headwall opening just before lunch.
Being that Reverse Traverse opened the day prior, I continued poking around KT including Rock Garden, The Nose & Alternates. With Olympic Lady open, I took around 8 laps in no time and literally skiing right onto the lift. The bulk of the skiing population was on the upper mountain anyway…no complaints here. The day finished with some Saddle laps with the kids, Mountain Run laps via the Funitel and ended the day skiing Poulsen’s Gully with my 8 year old just as we did Friday and Saturday,

AND THIS IS ALL BEFORE ANOTHER 10 FEET FELL!

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The coverage of the fingers WAS great…and then it continued to snow…a lot!

KT-22, Squaw Valley USA

View of the Valley from The Nose…

There’s snow down there!

Spent some time alone in Rock Garden…

Nooks & Crannies of KT…

A few afternoon laps with the boy in Oly Bowl…

An 8 year old searches for his line…

When the Clouds finally broke, Siberia said hello…

Siberia – Squaw Valley

And here’s a gratuitous pic of the Palisades…

Palisades – Squaw Valley

My 5 year old got aggressive under Emigrant Peak…

Grom on Shirley Lake…

Granite is open…Ok, one lap it is!

Granite Chief opener…

Granite Peak in untouched bluebird glory…

Granite Peak – Squaw

I went for hippy pow turns vibe…

The visuals were clear and crisp…

Contrasting earth and sky…

The fog layer huddled around for most of the weekend…

KT-22 peaking through the fog…

I spy a lake and that lake is LAKE TAHOE…

Tahoe looking blue indeed…

Tram Face was looking stacked…

Tram Face – Squaw Valley

Its not very often we see the trees staying white for so long…

Red Dog Ridge – Squaw

Over on the Fingers, I made some turns…

POV of a skier…

At my age, I usually head for the Banana…

Let them run…

It always nice to ride the classic Olympic Lady lift…

Olympic Lady – Squaw Valley

Such fun terrain near the lift-line…

Shooting some chuting…

Alpine Meadows enjoyed the fog layer as well…

Alpine Meadows arising from the mist…

Bottom Olympic Lady air…

Old guy getting some flight…

Back on Red Dog, the visuals continued…

Foggy manipulation on Red Dog

The snow in Poulsen’s Gully was consistent for all three days…

A dad takes a photo of his son skiing…

And that’s a wrap as another 10 feet approached the region…

Sunset on the Squaw Tram…

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