 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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wow, that is look very sorry for itself isn't it. Has it generally been a poor season or is Mamouth and other places on the west side in general fared better?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Isn't Tahoe having a 'bad decade' rather than just a bad season?
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Was there in Jan, mild with a small dump once in 10 days. Stepson and girlfriend are instructing in Squaw. He's having a great time, but the snow is pretty dire. It's not somewhere I would ever bothering going again; too far to travel with all the planning and advanced booking needed only to end up with rubbish conditions. Without the off piste, the skiing is limited to put it mildly.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Baker has closed too, although they're hoping to reopen for the Banked Slalom.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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I think only Sierra at Tahoe has closed and I understand Kirkwood is still going strong, but conditions around the lake have been terrible this season.
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Had a fantastic couple of days at Heavenly at the end of February when it snowed all weekend. I totally get it is terrible season by Tahoe standards, but it's all relative. We'd still be skiing those Sierra snow patches if they were in Scotland!
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There's more than Sierra at Tahoe closed, but it's the biggest name to close so far, but Homewood further up the West side of the Lake has been closed for weeks as has several of the other smaller snowsport areas. Kirkwood's current base depth is reported as 18inches with a season accumulated snow fall for the season of 102" at the base and 130" up top. The two year's I lived in Tahoe, Kirkwood had an 800+ and 850+ inch season, putting the current season in perspective, so is the fact that total accumulated snow fall for the season is less than the measured average base on the upper mountain at Glencoe.
It's been a bad snowsports season, but the drought situation is now critical - this needed to be a huge winter and it's worse than the 3 drought years that went before. Lake Tahoe fell below it's rim last September, the Truckee River flows into Tahoe, but no longer out. The situation is bad for CA, but Nevada is in deep poo poo. 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Homewood was closed when we went in January. My stepson, who is an instructor at Squaw, has been told this weekend that his season will end in 2 weeks-easter weekend. This is 3 weeks early. Conditions are dire. He and his girlfriend are having to completely rework their plans so as not to fall foul of US immigration as well as be 3 weeks down on expected wages. Once their job ends, under the terms of their visas they have 10 days to leave the country.
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Sorry if this is a dumb question, but do they have snow making here? Has it been too warm or just a lack of snow?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| PeteMan wrote: |
| Sorry if this is a dumb question, but do they have snow making here? Has it been too warm or just a lack of snow? |
Generally yes, but to widely varying extents. Sierra at Tahoe has very limited old snow making around their base area but that is about it, they've got issues with water availability even without an ongoing drought. The bigger commercial areas that drain into the Tahoe Basin are faring better in regard to snow making, as the water take for snow making is largely returned to the system in Spring so hasn't been restricted.
Heavenly likes to go on about having the largest West Coast snow making system in the USA, and it's saved their season. Certainly you'd not be able to link the higher parts of the hill or access the Stagecoach base in Nevada without it, but with prolonged high pressure then temperature inversions have been an issue at height. Kirkwood has some snow making but not that much and they unlike Heavenly and Northstar on the North Shore are operating primarily on natural snow.
Northstar probably would hardly have been open the past 2 seasons but for it's extensive snow making system and it's still offering top to bottom riding as a result of snow making efforts.
You'd like to think the drought will break in spectacular style with a huge winter, the area certainly needs it but it needed it this year and it's too late now whatever happens. There's only around 10% of the average snowpack in the Sierras and even a normal snowpack is nowhere near enough given the severity of the drought.
The company that operates the paddle steamers on Lake Tahoe carried out underwater surveys of the lake a few years ago and on the West shore they found fairly well preserved chunks of forest that extended down to almost a couple of hundred feet!
From settlement by early European arrivals it's been a fairly wet period for California and the submerged Tahoe forests show what's happened relatively recent and could happen again, it will take a big winter to get the Lake back up to it's rim and the Truckee river flowing out again.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Very interesting.
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You know it makes sense.
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Just back from a week in Tahoe. The conditions were far from 'El Nino epic' but we still had a lot of fun in very Spring-like conditions. Highlights were the chutes at Mt Rose, the terrain served by the Granite Chief chair at Squaw, and some fingers of snow in creekbeds at Kirkwood in Wagon Wheel Bowl. Mt Rose was the biggest surprise - very accessible and a fine little mountain with serious terrain.
Lots of pics and report at https://gortonator.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/a-california-funshine-ski-week/
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Not quite over yet, apparently. Kirkwood reporting snowfalls of four to eight inches over their ski area. 
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Poster: A snowHead
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| munter wrote: |
| We'd still be skiing those Sierra snow patches if they were in Scotland! |
OK but nobody travels 1000s of miles to ski in Scotland.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| dogwatch wrote: |
| munter wrote: |
| We'd still be skiing those Sierra snow patches if they were in Scotland! |
OK but nobody travels 1000s of miles to ski in Scotland. |
I haven't skied Scotland in a long time, but I suspect the Sierras are skiing a lot better even this year than Scotland ever does.
Fingers crossed for Spring storms - there and in PNW. They do often happen on El Nino years, but folks at Squaw were already talking of a April 12th close, or maybe earlier if it doesn't dump very soon.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| gortonator wrote: |
| dogwatch wrote: |
| munter wrote: |
| We'd still be skiing those Sierra snow patches if they were in Scotland! |
OK but nobody travels 1000s of miles to ski in Scotland. |
I haven't skied Scotland in a long time, but I suspect the Sierras are skiing a lot better even this year than Scotland ever does.
Fingers crossed for Spring storms - there and in PNW. They do often happen on El Nino years, but folks at Squaw were already talking of a April 12th close, or maybe earlier if it doesn't dump very soon. |
I would say the Sierras are normaly like Scotland with good snow, this year there is crap snow in the Sierras and good in Scotland, hence the skiing in Scoltland IS better.
And YES I have live in the Tahoe area
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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People don't even much travel from the south of England to ski in Scotland. Travel time to the Alps is much the same. Scotland is local skiing for local people. Sorry. Whereas Tahoe isn't just that, which was my point.
People do travel from all over to do mixed/ice climbing in Scotland, that's world class.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Most skiers in Tahoe are local skiers >80%, if you are counting San Francisco and Sacramento, the way you would Glasgow and Edingbourgh.
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| Idris wrote: |
| gortonator wrote: |
| dogwatch wrote: |
| munter wrote: |
| We'd still be skiing those Sierra snow patches if they were in Scotland! |
OK but nobody travels 1000s of miles to ski in Scotland. |
I haven't skied Scotland in a long time, but I suspect the Sierras are skiing a lot better even this year than Scotland ever does.
Fingers crossed for Spring storms - there and in PNW. They do often happen on El Nino years, but folks at Squaw were already talking of a April 12th close, or maybe earlier if it doesn't dump very soon. |
I would say the Sierras are normaly like Scotland with good snow, this year there is crap snow in the Sierras and good in Scotland, hence the skiing in Scoltland IS better.
And YES I have live in the Tahoe area |
Well, I must admit its 25 years since I last skied Scotland, so I guess some seriously pointy, high altitude, steep mountains must have popped up north of the border since then. If Scotland has terrain to match KT22, Wagon Wheel Bowl at Kirkwood, or the Chutes at Mt Rose, maybe I would travel a long way to ski there again 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| gortonator wrote: |
Well, I must admit its 25 years since I last skied Scotland, so I guess some seriously pointy, high altitude, steep mountains must have popped up north of the border since then. If Scotland has terrain to match KT22, Wagon Wheel Bowl at Kirkwood, or the Chutes at Mt Rose, maybe I would travel a long way to ski there again |
So you maybe skied in Scotland last around 1990 - when what were amongst three of the worst seasons since commercial mechanised snowsports begun here in the late 50s came along in the space of four years!
As for bigger mountains some sense of perspective, Kirkwood has no more vertical than CairnGorm or Nevis Range, yet people who pound Scottish Snowsports always start with a knock back on lack of vertical! CairnGorm's West Wall Poma is longer and has more vertical rise than the Cornice Express. Of course the climate zone difference is that if Loch Morlich sat at 7000ft and CairnGorm extended up to 10'000ft, Loch Morlich would be under a few 100m's of ice and you might be able to get a few days in July and August where you could actually venture out to ski on the Cairngorm Plateau!
Most of California's snowsports areas are small local resorts for local daytrip and weekend / short break skiers - so similar in the regard to Scotland, just in a different climate zone! Which isn't entirely a bad thing, the cost of flights to CA from the UK is to some extent offset by the fact that winter is very much LOW SEASON in Tahoe, which makes it good value for a winter holiday!
Seeing today that Vail Resorts has bought Australia's Perisher, in some regards a pity they didn't buy CML - I'd quite like unlimited access to Heavenly and Kirkwood on my 'Gorm season pass! 
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FAQ
the snow catching fences don't count.