Spring skiing
It’s spring now and yesterday we went for what will probably be our fin-de-season day of skiing. On saturday yet another (cold) storm had swept over Northern California (this March must hold some record of sorts) and delivered some nice powder in the Sierras. Normally spring skiing in California means: ride Sierra Cement in the morning, then slush in the afternoon, all under a bright sun in blue, sheltering skies. The cold storm meant this time we’d get powder in the morning instead – but as the sun and the sheltering sky were there as well, we still got some slush in the later hours.
We headed to Sugarbowl this time – below you see the Ayatola after a modest wipe-out.
I like the place for its steep stuff on Mount Lincoln and Mount Disney, having the Palisades in between them. The latter are a bunch of steep chutes with cliff bands in between them and on good powder days you get a chance see some daredevils do serious cliff jumps (or try them yourself, if you’re so inclined). On the photo below I (unfortunately) just missed a skier flying off the cliff but you get the idea.
Sugarbowl is not very good for tree skiing though, much to the chagrin of Ayatola Hombre, who’s turned into an even more ardent tree ski lover than myself. This trip will likely wrap up the season, unless there are more freak storms coming our way… and: I’m still hoping to ski down some Cascade volcano in the summer…
