Well damn! It feels weird writing this and looking back on these photos when so much has changed so quickly in the course of a few weeks…
After 2 weekends away mid-February, we returned to Reno to find that ~50% of the snowpack had melted while we were gone, no snow had fallen (this February was one of the driest on record for the Sierra), and things were looking a little dire!
We took advantage of other activities, like taking a cooking class, going to the batting cages, and doing some watercoloring…
On Feb 28, we headed out for an exploratory tour on the TRT south of Chickadee Ridge to see what there was to see…we had hoped to make it to Diamond Peaks, but one crappy fall on the skins and a cranky hip turned us around a little over halfway there. Conditions were NOT GREAT, with big fins of snow, lots of tree wells melted out, and overall sort of sad times. However, since we are weirdos, this felt par for the course in terms of classic D&D days.
Luckily, the next day (March 1), it finally snowed again! We skied inbounds at Alpine and had a surprisingly fun morning (seriously) of skiing a foot of new snow on top of rocks and ice moguls. As Alex would say, “looks like pow, sounds like shit!”
After that, we thought we had better try to take advantage of the new snow before the sun got it, so we headed out for a dawn patrol before work (FINALLY, our first one since moving here!) on Mt Rose with T and Will! We had THE BEST time, and skied mostly surprisingly great snow! A little sharky out the bottom, just to wake us up a little. THANKS GUYS FOR GETTING OUT WITH US!!!
Then: THE WEEKEND OF THE STUT! (Aka: steeze chicks.) Shane came out for a long weekend and despite not much new snow to play around in, we still had a great time. In fact, it was the greatest snow he and Alex had ever skied together (fact). One day of Alpine+Squaw, another day of graupel on ice at Alpine, and a beautiful tour up Rubicon with Kate joining us! We also batted at baseballs, ate all the foods, drank the beers, and sauna’ed the sauna. It was glorious. THANKS FOR VISITING US STUT (luckily, pre-social distancing)!!!
