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| - elliot - |
i introduce you to elliot,
ski expert,
golf expert,
and guest blogger extraordinaire.
-christina
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fact: when it snows in tahoe, it “dumps"
fact: when it dumps in tahoe, all of
not to piggyback on christina’s last entry, but excited for west coast powder doesn’t quite do it justice. my “work day” on friday was devoted to the caltran website, tahoeloco weather page and google maps as I monitored highway cams, followed weather patterns and plotted alternate routes around road closures and avalanches. I come from a place where crust is king and I was NOT going to miss 11ft worth of accumulation.
the one thing you can’t account for on your journey to the promise land is the lift line, or as we now like to call it, the lift blob. having dropped Christina off at her level 4 lesson, kilo, franimal and i set-out on what we thought was going to be an epic day. here’s how it played out along with a “how to” on navigating the lift blob for anyone planning on making the trek to Squallywood.
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| KT-22 on the left, black blob around tree = "line" |
1. don’t take shortcuts
we had a decision to make, the lines at KT-22 and Red Dog were daunting and the Funitel wasn’t scheduled to open for another hour. exhibition was screaming our name with nary a line, we went for it. suckers. we were back at the bottom within 5 min and the lines at the aforementioned lifts had only grown. F
2. don’t actually go to the end of the line
if you want to sleep at night, by all means, go to the end of the line. if you don’t want to wait in line for an hour, casually cut through the line as if you are only passing by and then jump right in once you’re at least an arms length away from the people you just walked by. you’ll filter towards the front while the peeps in the back stand motionless muttering under their breath (remember; words can never hurt you). we waited in line for an hour, after a couple skis to the back of the head and narrowly avoiding a toppling girl who started a domino-like chain, we made it onto the funitel.
3. keep moving up the mountain
due to avalanche control, squaw opens in stages, bottom half, top-half, headwall then granite chief and lastly silverado. headwall wasn’t spinning yet, groomers off siberia / gold coast simply weren’t what we drove 8 hours for and granite chief wasn’t open so we gambled and headed towards silverado. CLOSED. at this point we may as well just shoot ourselves in the foot b/c we have one option now, broken arrow, underneath the funitel all the way back to the b o t t o m.
4. avoid europeans and south americans
in the blob, people will undoubtedly cut you, it’s going to happen. the only thing worse than watching someone get the jump on you with their 1980s rossignols wedged in front of yours is having them yell “hola avila, ven aqui” right in your ear at the top of their lungs. “cierra la boca!!!!”
5. 9 times out of 10 go for the edges
really squaw? you’re only letting 3 people at a time up the 4 person lift on the busiest day of the year? REALLY? sorry, bottom-line, you’re better off on the edges b/c it’s a lot easier to move the 5 oz PVC piping a little to the right creating the effect you’re in line than it is the 300lb boarder who somehow has a jacket stuffed with PBR tallboys
by the time we got down broken arrow, up squaw one and made our way 300yds to siberia it was 12:15, time for one last run before meeting up with Christina. for those keeping score at home;
hours of skiing: 3+
runs: 2.5
despite that atrocious ratio above the lap down broken arrow made everything worth it. all it takes is a few turns of thigh high fluff (and with snow piled so high that the funitel was dragging on the ground, fluff we got) and you’ve forgetten how you wanted to wrap your pole aroundavila
until you realize that your gf got 5x as many runs as you b/c ski school skips the lines. F
we had a decision to make, the lines at KT-22 and Red Dog were daunting and the Funitel wasn’t scheduled to open for another hour. exhibition was screaming our name with nary a line, we went for it. suckers. we were back at the bottom within 5 min and the lines at the aforementioned lifts had only grown. F
2. don’t actually go to the end of the line
if you want to sleep at night, by all means, go to the end of the line. if you don’t want to wait in line for an hour, casually cut through the line as if you are only passing by and then jump right in once you’re at least an arms length away from the people you just walked by. you’ll filter towards the front while the peeps in the back stand motionless muttering under their breath (remember; words can never hurt you). we waited in line for an hour, after a couple skis to the back of the head and narrowly avoiding a toppling girl who started a domino-like chain, we made it onto the funitel.
3. keep moving up the mountain
due to avalanche control, squaw opens in stages, bottom half, top-half, headwall then granite chief and lastly silverado. headwall wasn’t spinning yet, groomers off siberia / gold coast simply weren’t what we drove 8 hours for and granite chief wasn’t open so we gambled and headed towards silverado. CLOSED. at this point we may as well just shoot ourselves in the foot b/c we have one option now, broken arrow, underneath the funitel all the way back to the b o t t o m.
4. avoid europeans and south americans
in the blob, people will undoubtedly cut you, it’s going to happen. the only thing worse than watching someone get the jump on you with their 1980s rossignols wedged in front of yours is having them yell “hola avila, ven aqui” right in your ear at the top of their lungs. “cierra la boca!!!!”
5. 9 times out of 10 go for the edges
really squaw? you’re only letting 3 people at a time up the 4 person lift on the busiest day of the year? REALLY? sorry, bottom-line, you’re better off on the edges b/c it’s a lot easier to move the 5 oz PVC piping a little to the right creating the effect you’re in line than it is the 300lb boarder who somehow has a jacket stuffed with PBR tallboys
by the time we got down broken arrow, up squaw one and made our way 300yds to siberia it was 12:15, time for one last run before meeting up with Christina. for those keeping score at home;
hours of skiing: 3+
runs: 2.5
despite that atrocious ratio above the lap down broken arrow made everything worth it. all it takes is a few turns of thigh high fluff (and with snow piled so high that the funitel was dragging on the ground, fluff we got) and you’ve forgetten how you wanted to wrap your pole around
until you realize that your gf got 5x as many runs as you b/c ski school skips the lines. F
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| funitel = gondola, line at 9:15am |
*a big thank you to christina for making these pictures extra funny and cool.
*a big thank you to christina for making these pictures extra funny and cool.
Nice work.
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