Thanks for waiting...

Sara and I went backcountry skiing around Fallen Leaf Lake at the base of Mt. Tallac on Saturday.  That afternoon we decided we wanted to keep skiing together.  Forever.

Thanks to the magic of the iphone you can see exactly where it happened.  See the blue dot below.

Latitude: 38.918167° N, Longitude: 120.070167° W

View Thanks for waiting in a larger map

i heart storms

The last few months have been a parade of monster storms lining up to drop sweet sweet powder all over the Sierra.  We've been doing our best to chase the storms and get in the mountains as much as possible but when you have a full time job at sea level it can be hard to get the goods.  Fortunately last week more than just the storms lined up.  Work was slowing down and the storms were building at the same rate.  I decided to play hooky and take a few snow days.  Inspired by Bernard's blog post to seize opportunities when they come I saw my window and decided to go for it.

Thursday morning I woke up at 4am and headed for the mountains.  Got to the lifts early and sampled what was the first of many great powder days to come.  The snow was about boot deep, nothing crazy but it was fun and there was nobody around.  After my solo session at Kirkwood I drove north to meet up with Kevin, Yu, G-funk, B-Ral, and Patrick at Squaw.  I Followed the boys around Squaw as the storm came in and covered the mountains like a down blanket.  The boys found every feature within a thirty mile radius to huck off of and Funk also taught us the best way to ski fresh powder... First!  Saturday I was back at Kirkwood with Sara, Paul, and Patrick skiing what was one of the best powder days of the season.  It was solid knee to waist high cold and dry powder.  One of those days when only the steepest of runs was doable.  We found out later that after we got to Kirkwood the road in was closed behind us for a few hours.  With short lift lines the normal powder day anxiety just wasn't there.  Instead of racing around the mountain for first tracks everyone was hooting each other into the deepest lines.  What a blast.   By Sunday the few roads that were open had been shut down, there was no way to get  to the resorts and the backcountry was a dangerous option we decided to skip.

Moral of the story?  Take a day off, work will still be there when you get back.  I promise.

Before I left the office I borrowed a

 to play with.  It's a fun little camera with a great slow motion feature.  It actually "overcranks" shooting 60 frames per second instead of the standard 30.  So when played back at 30 fps you get a true buttery smooth slow-mo just like the pro cameras, pretty amazing for a camera that only costs a few hundred bucks.  I definitely learned a lot playing with it for the first time and a few shots came out OK, enjoy!



Snow Day from JonnyB on Vimeo.


twenty nine ski days and counting...

Wisconsin of the West

It's hard to say why we love South Lake Tahoe so very very much.  It doesn't have the big fancy resorts or the cute downtown but something about that silly little town keeps us coming back year after year.  This weekend I think we finally figured out why we love it so.  It reminds us of the good times we had growing up in the Midwest and heading to Wisconsin on the weekends.

Sara, Paul, Alex, Ashley and I did this last one up right with a South Lake Tahoe trifecta skiing, pool, and bowling.  For the record Alex got the only official strike, Paul won, and I beat Sara but I'll never see the five dollars she bet me on the game.  Ski total is at 26.  Video shot on my phone:


Wisconsin of the West from JonnyB on Vimeo.

Look Out Below

Quick trip back up to Kirkwood with the little charger for two days of skiing bringing the season total to 24.  Not bad for a working stiff.  It was one of those days with enough fresh snow that everyone was hucking their meat off everything.  At one point we stood on a cornice for abut 60 seconds and watched at least five people launch, crash, and burn.  But the best part was watching Sara send it off the cornice!?!  And land!

The drive home was no different but instead of people flying off cliffs it was the snow itself with mini point release slides hitting HWY 88.  Caltrans was amazing moving snow and keeping the road open.

One of many mini slides.

But it was nothing compared to this great video shot last weekend on HWY 50 posted on Unofficial Squaw.  The best part of the video is the commentary of these two dudes.  Classic.