Monday, March 28, 2005

Randonnee Skiing - Ostrander Hut

This weekend we went to Yosemite. Maureen had wanted to try backcountry skiing for a while, so we decided to head out to the mountains once again. After a little bit of research, and because the weather forecast for Tahoe was rather bad we chose to go to Ostrander Lake in Yosemite (altitude 8550ft).

Marie-Catherine and Goeric left on Thursday night to get a head start, and Maureen and I were planning to meet them on Saturday afternoon in the mountains, silly enough to think our cell phones would be working up there. I had Friday off (Good Friday), so I went to Berkeley’s famous Marmot Mountain Works store to get gear for our expedition. The picture below shows our packing list:

- Randonnee ski package (K2 Shes Piste + Diamir Titanal + Garmont GSM boots)

-Telemark ski package (K2 Instinx + Scarpa T2 boots)

- Avalanche gear rented from Marmot and Alex Roetter, Inc.

- A pack full of heavy stuff (18lbs)

- A pack full of heavier stuff (32lbs)

- An all wheel drive 225-hp 6-speed manual Audi A4 quattro + 18 inch rims



Friday night, we slept in the beautiful town of Groveland, CA and got up early the next morning to drive to the park’s only ski resort (Badger Pass) where our trailhead was located. We started the 10.1 miles (16.5km) trail at 9h30AM. At 9h37AM, Maureen discovered what every generation of first-time randonee skiers have discovered before her: randonnee boots are not comfortable. The following hour or so was spent re-adjusting, re-tightening followed by re-loosening Maureen’s boots. To be completely fair, we did make some progress in between the boot-adjustment sessions, and we were hitting a swift (under these circumstances) pace of 2mph.

After ~5 miles on relatively flat and groomed terrain, the trail turns into single track and the serious climbing begins. The weather was perfect with absolutely no wind, and the fresh snow made for a beautiful scenery. Maureen’s feet were toughening up (or was she getting tired of complaining), and we (I?) started fully enjoying the wilderness (we did not meet a single skier all day) and the magnificent views of the valley.

We reached the Lake at 4h15PM, but Marie-Catherine and Goeric were nowhere to be found (but then again, they are always late… :). I started following tracks in the snow hoping to find their tent and stumbled onto the two of them napping in what would be our base camp for the weekend. We enjoyed the rest of the daylight setting up our tent and preparing a comfortable pit for dinner.

In the morning Goeric and myself left at 7AM for a quick downhill run in the morning snow. The snow conditions were rather poor (crust) but the setting made up for it (see Goeric’s pictures). A 60 feet drop into a beautiful, 30 deg slope (the tracks are visible exactly above Maureen in the background of the picture with the two girls). This was my third time on Telemark skis, which made the whole thing much more interesting.

We were back at the base at 9AM and ready to leave by 10AM. The first half of the trail (single track) had some great tree skiing, and then came the groomed part… a gruelsome, 2-hour hike on boring semi-flat terrain really tested our mental stamina. We reached the cars at 3PM. Maureen’s blisters had at that point developed in lovely 2-inch diameter pouches. In retrospect, a 7-hour climb on your first time backcountry skiing could have been considered as daring.
For
more pictures, click here or here

Monday, March 21, 2005

Tahoe Storm

Maureen and I drove up to the cabin on Friday night, where we met Otto (the swedish contingent of the house) and his friends Anika and Tobias (and little Linus). Julie, MM. Ginsberg and Jahr drove up later that night as well. There were a few snow showers at Donner pass, but nothing to write home about. It started to snow gently overnight and we spent Saturday playing in powder at Alpine Meadows. It was rather windy, and since we were soaked form the falling snow, it got very chilly, and we decided to head home for Julie's now famous warm chocolate. Albert and Kristin had come up that morning with their front wheel drive Jetta (this fact is of no significance at this point, but may well be later...).

Things got serious that night. When we woke up, it was snowing hard, and 12 (30cm) inches of new snow were covering our deck. Unfortunately for Albert's Jetta our deck was not the only thing covered with a thick layer of snow. After numerous but unsuccessful attemps to get the car moving in any direction other than downhill with the car had to be towed to the highway. Check out the attached pictures of this white inferno (taken Sturday BEFORE the bulk of the storm hit)!

Despite the storm and the fact that most lifts were on windhold, we headed to Squaw, where the lower mountain, and most importantly KT-22 and Olympic lady were running. it had snowed close to 20 inches (50cm) by that time (storm total 34 inches), and for little people like me, that meant knee-high power pleasure. The winds and the near-zero visibility could not spoil an amazing day on the slopes. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures that day, because it was technically too challenging to operate my camera in this blizzard.

After warming up a bit at the Chamois, we decided to hit the road. We drove 2 hours in the snow, and progressed a grand total of 6 miles. Being Engineers, we quickly calculated that at this pace, it would take us 60 hours to get to San Francisco, hence our quick (?) decision to turn around. We had dinner at Wolfdale's and slept at the cabin, hoping the traffic would clear up overnight. The next morning at 6AM Highway 80 was still covered with snow and stranded trucks were piled up from Reno to Truckee, but the friendly Caltrans people let us pass through chain control thanks to the quattro logo on the grille (the ultra-low profile performance tyres luckily went unnoticed).

We were at work at 10h30 that day.