Day 72

California giveth, and California taketh away… After a phenomenal week of some of the best skiing conditions I’d ever experienced in Northern California during powder week – during which time we received almost 10 feet of blower in the span of four days – the weather turned and… Yes… Non-frozen precipitation (it is exceedingly blasphemous to utter the word “r@!n” up here in the mountains during winter). On February 24 and 25 Donner Pass received a staggering and heartbreaking 3.6 inches/9.1 centimeters of non-frozen precipitation. You wouldn’t think even that much water could make a significant dent in 10 feet of snow from the prior week, but it was astonishing how much of the new snow was washed away in the cruel span of 36 hours. February 23 was the only day of the season thus far when I didn’t ski and could have (although Wild Man was one of the few Academy athletes out there in the rain!). That said, there’s still a hell of lot more snow covering the mountains up here than there was at the end of the month-long dry spell on February 15, but definitely no powder skiing since February 23. There was so much water in the snowpack following the warm storm that Sugar Bowl actually closed most of the steeper parts of the mountain for almost a week due to the risks of wet slide avalanches. Crazy…

In spite of the conditions, we both still enjoyed getting out on the slopes almost every day since powder week. It was a jaw-dropper watching the incredible maneuvers as part of the USASA Futures Tour competition on February 26-27. There were teens from all over the western US launching off the massive kickers in the Golden Eagle terrain park, the acrobatics were pretty incredible. Olympians in the making. Some of the skiers were pulling things as complicated as a double cork 1440, really impressive stuff. I didn’t have a recording device with me on February 26 for the skiers, but managed to snap a few quick videos of the snowboarders on February 27 (below).

We had an impromptu visit from the girls on February 27, which was a very nice surprise and a great excuse to celebrate Lilia’s birthday early (she’ll be globetrotting to visit her grandparents for her actual birthday next week…). Great to get some more laps in with the ladies over the weekend, but we could have done without the random lightning bolt that struck the resort and closed the mountain for an hour last Sunday!

Maxie had his third and final Tahoe Junior Freeride Series comp of the season scheduled over at Mount Rose this last weekend, but it was postponed for a week due to the cold nights we’d been having: the comp venue would have been rock hard and was deemed unsafe, glad the organizers made the call… With no comp on the calendar Max and his buddy Finn from SBA took the afternoon off with Paris and I yesterday for a few hours of spring weather freesking. Lots of fun bombing around the resort trying to keep up with the boys, definitely made Paris and I feel a little younger than our years. The boys even pressured the dads to throw a 360 or two (it will be my only one of the season!).

We keep crossing our fingers for Miracle March to deliver like it has so many times over the past decade, but each day we wake up and there’s nothing but sunshine in the forecast. And some hot sunshine at that: it’s supposed to get up to 73°F/23°C next week! Yuk. Please… Just one more (cold) storm for the season!