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

TAHOE TAHOE TAHOE

If you haven’t heard about the Travelocity Roaming Gnome contest, it’s like a social media grudge match between Tahoe and The Wasatch. Tahoe kicks ass, so click over to the Roaming Gnome Facebook Page and vote Tahoe!

Skiing Pics

Proof that Tahoe is better: Some photos from a short Ski Tour to the North Side of the Fire Plug from saturday.

Landscape Photography

A few months back we auctioned off a painting by Brian Raszka to help support the web hosting of The Bacon Strip. Next week, while LowCO2, Huck Tater and I are in AZ riding @ 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, We’ll be auctioning off a framed print by The Restless Ape. Last year TRL got a Canon 5d MK2 and joined the technological and chemical free photography revolution. He got a lot of great photos over they year, and he’s selected THE BEST to donate to the cause.

Banner Peak @ Dawn by Barrett Donovan

Bacon365

If you haven’t seen my Bacon365 photo project, you can check it out here.

The Restless Ape, Kangdiggity and I hit Mt. Rose this morning. less than a foot of actual powder, but it was really nice. Good base. We found a lot of great lines through the trees below the Blazing Zephyr.

Mt Rose, Tahoe

Gonna go back Friday. So Far Taldor and Kangdiggity are in. Who else?

-M

It was a white Christmas in Reno. Beautiful, but cold, windy and avalanchey up in the mountains. A dude was killed @ Squaw! So we laid low. And that was a good plan. Here’s what it looked like today:

Went up to Alpine with the Fam and Pyrofloptic. We shredded. There’s still some left though. We’re probably going to go back to Incline Lake Peak tomorrow. Should be epic. Might try to go back in and ski some of the back bowls around Rose Knob.

-M

Powder on earth and good turns towards men, and women…

Sure is a kick ass holiday!

Shreding Alpine tomorrow with the fam. If it turns out off the hizzle, I’ll report back here…

-M

Shredded Alpine with Nooner and Aaron Sunday. Here’s the vid.

-M

Yo StripTards!

Since so many of us ski @ Alpine Meadows a lot and have passes, I thought you’d like this video I shot on snowmaking @ the Tahoe Resort. Super cool! The guy in the video, Peter “Foul Weather Minxy” Minks was on a video shoot of a climbing movie on the Eiger last year, and was on everest expeditions. Super cood dude. I’ll have to corner him and get more stories next time I see him.

And that may be tomorrow cause that’s when the resort is opening for the 2008/2009 season! Woooo HOOOOO!!! We’re going up to shoot more video. Pyrofloptic is gonna be there. If you can make it show up, we need people to style it up on camera.

The ten day tahoe forecast looks good!

-M

Photo by Photo John

Dispite the current climatic aberations, it IS ski season!

I shreded Alta, Utah with Cptn. Red Beard and Photo John last weekend and DAMN it was RAD!!!

On another note, I just upgraded a number of BaconStrippers to editor, so you can now post. Any questions, shout!

-M

Photo of Wolfy skiing by Photo John Shafer, www.photographyreview.com

I stopped by the Patagonia Warehouse tonight to see the newest Adventure Film Works production, “AK the Hard Way” about a journey to Haines Alaska to ski some sick lines and test the limits of human epic endurance. What I liked about this ski movie was it’s humanity. It’s admission that we are all beings with history, subtext and above all, fear and doubt that inevitably affect the way we ski. When have you ever seen a ski movie where one of the stars is so sketched out about a line that she skates down it in big secure, looping turns cause she’s so scared of the terrain and line? Would you rather see some douchetard whirlybird off a yacht after an all night session of redbull and Play Station and take a slider and barely come up alive only to wax douchetic about the feagility of live while riffing to footage of impossible chopper lines?

Sure, it isn’t cathartic in the sense that an MSP film is with it’s steep dusty lines and helicopter footage is, but why do we watch these movies? why do we ski? Why to we wrench ourselves out of a fitful dreamscape, palms sweating, scalp stretched tight with imagined tension while in our minds that we are dropping a far far sicker line than we may ever have the nerve to drop.

Cause it scares the crap out of us while attracting us with is vibrance like nothing else we know for reasons we don’t really understand. Good job Duane Kubischta!

If anyone wants a screening of Duane’s most recent film, or his past films, “Weather We Change” and “Hustle and Snow” I can arrange a screening. I picked up all three tonight.

Thanks to Duane for coming to Reno and to our good freinds @ the Nevada Wilderness Project for hosting him tonight.

-M

Could be a real headline here if we rally together and launch a successful campaign to get Alpine Meadows Ski Resort to rename a trail in our esteemed honor. What other local blog / band of dirty hippy mountain bikers and backcountry skiers has a bigger presence @ Alpine Meadows than us? VNasty is there EVERY DAY! Nooninator usually has a pass and kneedrops like a mofo. The McDeez have been sighted with frequency, and of course, I practically work there.

The question is which trail should be The Bacon Strip? Red, Green or Blue…

Take a look at the trail map for a finer analysis.

“The trails are special and their names deserve a bit more character,” said Jim Kercher, Alpine Meadows General Manager. I remember working at Alpine in 1975; and even then, people consistently commented that the names needed some more creativity. For the trail re-naming contest, the best suggestions for the new names are going to come from people who ski and ride them on a regular – even daily – basis. The new trail names aim to reflect the strong connection between Alpine and its roots and community,” he added.

So post up a comment with reasons why Alpine Meadows should have run called The Bacon Strip and how unspeakably awesome that would be, and I’ll do our official entry. (be sure to check out the prizes… Which I’d of course share with the team)

-M