We use to ski at Sierra Summit near Huntington Lake out of Fresno, CA. It was once and is again called China Peak, after the highest point on the resort. At the time they had a bunch of these cheesy info signs on the (fixed grip)  lift towers like:

It can be sunny in the mountains when it’s cloudy in the valley!

and

Man made snow is real snow, it’s just mand made!

We always thought that was pretty funny to the point that we, my sisters and I, to this day spout that out at the least provocation. It’s just so obvious!

I mention this of course because man made snow is now the dominant force in Tahoe Skiing. Heavenly, Northstar and some others have been open for a few weeks hauling skiers and riders up for rip up the man made corduroy. Friday Mt. Rose is opening up a ribbon of anthropogenic crystal from top to bottom. Just the Northwest trail to Kit Carson. Unless a fad bastard dump comes through, The Chutes will not be open.

NowI don’t get that excited about man made snow, not cause it’s not fun skiing, it is, but because it traps all the skiers in the run and doesn’t give you and fun of trail stuff. Still, skiing is skiing. So I’ll shred Friday @ Rose.

Maybe we could do a biathlon on Saturday and shred Rose, then do the Dry Pond Loop on the way home!

-M

Taldor, The Restless Ape, Pyrofloptic and I hit the Fire Plug yesterday. AWESOME snow on the north side, shitacular snow on the south.

Pyrofloptic set off a wet slide on the south face of the Fire Plug that ran all the way to the bottom. It moved slowly and took the snow down to the layer before the Friday night storm. It was sketch. Big enough to bury a person or a small black dog who likes to chase snow balls. Pyro was able to call Juni off. She was chasing the damn thing down the hill!

Watch your top-knot out there.

Check out the recent Tahoe avalanche observations from the Sierra Avalanche Center.

-M

While Nooner and the McDeez R rocking Downieville and The Yuba, Barrett and I are planning on riding Geiger, Spooner and Mt. Rose on the road. Sound’s fucking miserable if you ask me. But it also sounds like it might be helpful if I plan to not suckdonkeyballs @ the Cascade Cream Puff in June. You never know…

I know Gris had mentioned wanting to do this ride. So if you think you can ride slow enough, please join us!

-M

And the lord said, “let there be sick,” and there was sick and behold it was very sick…

Captain Redbeard and I dropped Credit Card Bowl at about oh-dark-thirty this morning. Wind was howling on the road, but disappeared altogether about 20 meters down. Pow was sick, sunrise was sick and for the most part the good Captain and I were quite well. Yes, quite well indeed…

The Cap’n demponstrated the dangers of falling in a tree well. Fortunately I was there to ease the sting by laughing at him. We agreed on a new saying: he who laughs last, bails early. Funny how that worked out…

Don’t worry. I bought him a bagel for laughing at him. We’re cool.

-M