Feb 26 2011

Ten-11, D20: Sugar Bowl Sidecountry

Despite the fact that we didn’t even arrive at the parking lot until 11am, Sugar Bowl’s sidecountry terrain remained untracked. That would soon change.

Brian Wasson on the deepest pitch of the day.
Click to enlarge.

Last week the January dry spell was broken when the heavens dropped over 8 feet of snow at the higher elevations in the Tahoe area. Before the dust had barely settled from that storm, two more feet covered an already phat base yesterday (25feb) and the night before.

Predictably, the 24 hour rule had most backcountry skiers playing it safe, but the Sierra Avalanche Center was surprising honest, calling for only considerable avalanche danger and pockets of high. Having personally removed it from the driveway, we knew it had come in right side up, bonded well, and barring any unexpected pockets of wind sculpting, most slopes should be good to go.

We all had other things to do. With only 1mm of life left, my brake pads needed replacing. Our neighbors, Sunmie and Brian were talking about catching up on work, but days like today are the reason we all live in Tahoe. With a phone call Brian and Sunmie were able to take the kids to Grandma’s and in an hour we rendezvoused at The Back Country with another neighbor, Aaron, then headed for the Sugar Bowl parking lot.
Keep making backcountry turns

Feb 20 2011

Stoke: Tahoe Pow

Sometimes all the ingredients come together. Friends, blue skies and calm winds the day after a storm with enough time available to nail a few runs of untracked bliss.

Plummage by Dan Belanger on Knob Jr., Tahoe area.
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Feb 18 2011

Winter returns to Tahoe

The forecast on Valentines Day, 2011.
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It’s been over six weeks since La Niña gave California a good pounding. She gave us a nice 10-inch resurfacing three weeks ago. Despite that, compared to the regular dumps the ten-11 season began with, the last six weeks were beginning to feel like the familiar dry and blue skies of drought times.

And what actually fell by Wednesday evening (as predicted!).
Click to enlarge.

The Sierra Nevada range tends to act that way. Huge dumps with long periods of sunshine in between. I’m used to a dry spell every January, but this time it had gone past feeling like spring. The sidecountry had become downright hideous, a combination of sun cups with sun rotted ruts kept frozen solid from a wind that refused leave us alone, like late season sun cups only worse. If you wanted good snow you had to be willing to hike a little further to get away from the tracked up mess the Tahoe sidecountry had become.
Keep making backcountry turns

Feb 14 2011

Converting Elevations in Your Head

 
Don’t you hate it when you’re looking at a topo map, or reading an article, and the elevations are in the wrong units? That would be meters if you’re an American, and feet for everyone else. We all know that the difference is roughly a factor of three, but it truly is a rough estimate. Wouldn’t it be nice to be more accurate without having to use a calculator? Here’s a method that yields an estimate to within 2% accuracy.
Keep making backcountry turns

Feb 09 2011

Review: Day 2 on TTS beta binding

Dynafiddle Toe + Voile cable w/radical pivot location
+ Hammerheel. 2¼ lbs. per pair.
Click to enlarge.

After floundering on the descent the day before, the next order of business was to get a better boot fit. Using a pair of Garmont liners circa 2007 in my Scarpa TX-Pro shells I headed to The Back Country in Truckee intent on cooking them into conformity with my feet.

Step 1: Squishing out some more room with toe caps via heat molding.

Step 2: Add some foam above my instep to help hold my heel in place, a necessary measure to balance the massive amount of resistance created by the super active pivot position of the TTS cable.

Step 3: The Targa heel throw had to go. The easiest solution was to substitute a Voile cable assembly for the G3. This was simple, and did the trick beautifully. Because of how aggressive the pivot location is pretension was set to minimal. It was enough to hold the heel lever tight and let me use the full range of Voile’s more linear spring compression.

Testing: Day 2

Next stop, Sugar Bowl ski resort, where the crowds aren’t too big, and you can use a lift or two to warm up before launching into the surrounding backcountry. The first two runs on groomers revealed the troubles with my inaugural run on the TTS binding were indeed the result of poor optimization. Driving the rear ski with lots of edge control was as good as I’ve ever experienced. I’ll have to do a side by side comparison with an NTN binding to confirm, but based on memory—at the worst—the TTS was on par with NTN, Axl, or Hammerhead for skiing power (see Verdict on TTS for that confirmation).
Keep making backcountry turns

Feb 07 2011

Review: Day 1 with TTS beta binding

As soon as I opened the door I was faced with an unexpected decision. Continue forth with the plan for a workout at the pool, or open the box in front of me that surely contained Mark Lengel’s Telemark Tech System binding and give it a quick test run.

The Telemark Tech System after a short tour.
Click to enlarge.

A sweaty skin up the Couloir Office Run in the sun sounded better and besides, Pepper needed more than the minimum walk she had received this morning before I hunkered down with the computers. I dusted off my TX-Pros for their first use of the season, grabbed my pack and headed for the neighborhood hill (which, by the way has become a rather popular place to make turns this season).

The TTS binding uses a Dynafit (aka Tech) toe with a classic compression spring cartridge style telemark cable assembly that latches to the heel of the boot. It only works with NTN boots that have Tech fittings. That limits it to four boots for now, Scarpa’s TX, TX-Pro, the F1 and F3. I’m leery to believe the F1 or F3 would work well in this rig as they were not designed to perform deep flexing telemark turns, just provide a flexible sole for a more natural stride while skinning. However, Mark Lengel says several of his beta testers regularly uses Scarpa F3 boots and their experience indicates that within a few days of use the bellows soften enough to permit smooth tele turns.

Crispi says they plan to add Tech fittings to their Evo and Shiver boots next year in both mens and womens versions. If true, that means a choice of at least four models for men, two for women, in Fall 2011.
Keep making backcountry turns

Feb 06 2011

Tahoe conditions & TTS tease

Spring has sprung here in the Sierra. It’s full on corn season and finally, today, the sun came out and the wind died. That combination should obliterate all the unconsolidated manifestations of snow that have troubled backcountry skiers in Tahoe for the last two weeks. Especially this last week.

TTS tracks

Makin' tracks with TTS in Sugar Bowl sidecountry.
Click to enlarge.

The base has been frozen concrete with runnels, coated in wind sculpted fresh snow with plateaus of sastrugi for extra texture. But Saturday the spell began to break as temperatures rose into the 40s and light clouds prevented the sun from completely baking the top. To be sure, it did in a few places, making the snow not only textured, but alternately grippy or fast. Thankfully it was soft and I managed to share the slopes on the south side of Mt. Judah with a couple from UC Davis, Paul and Liz, and their friend Adam, originally from New Hampshire.
Keep making backcountry turns