Mountain Biking Tahoe: Haus Von Fat is Phat!! (Oct 10, 2014)

Tahoe is mountain bike (and skiing, climbing, hiking, trail running) heaven (... why don't I live up there?) BTW, for those who haven't been... Haus von Fat is big time... as in the majors. Well done boys.  That place rocks, thanx for hosting us!  

a quick recap of the weekend activities:

Fri: After a short beach time at Kiva Beach, Toro and I rode Hawley Grade to Toads to HvF.

Sat: Barrett, Metres, Hauser, Toro and I did a similar, longer ride.  

Sun: the Metres and the Kuwabaras went up to see the Galbraiths at Sugar Pine Point.  

Kai and Mingie riding a skinny...

at Kiva beach on Fri

Nikko breakdancing

Somewhere on Toads... it almost looks like Toro is on a uni

Toro killing it down the most technical section of Toads... 

Sat... Barrett "the steam roller" rollin' over/through/past boulders like it's his second job...

Sundog!

meanwhile... at the beach... it was bum tanning time.

Metres, making the leaves look pretty... 

a gif from Barrett... this was the most colorful section of the ride.  The fall colors were going off!

Meiss Meadow? 

Meadow world from the pano above...

Hauser trying out Barrett's bike

so purty

another shot stolen from Barret

at Armstrong pass we took a quick break to loosen up before our downhill

...

Upper Corral trail has some fun features... Metres riding granite

And Lower Corral has some big features... here's Toro NOT going for it and hitting the smaller feature.

back at HvF, D was cracking Sierra up...

and vise versa

Ol' Unkle Funkle tweaked his back sitting in his office chair... so he skipped the ride.  But he did some yardwork and rode the uni instead!  Woohoo...

we all stayed outside as there was tension inside... Kimbo's Tigers were losing... and you  need to keep some distance between you and a scary tiger...

Kai showed me around on some of the local trails...

right back to his favorite log ride... which was his train track with a station in the middle.

dinner time!

we all turned into vampires and started feasting...

Nikko was happy to be back at the beach for the 3rd day in a row!  Didn't take any pics, but hung out infront of Hellman's Mansion at Sugar pine Pt.  

Vid from Ostrander.

Ostrander! Thrice!

The crew!  What a beautiful day...

Howard...  triangle man.  

First, starting off with two amazing pics from our trip of us goofing around.  There's some pics that I didn't take here as well.  For all the pics (for those of you that came on this trip... go here.)  Also check out Johnny's and B-nard's blogs for some quality pics & posts.  

Drove up with in the Dad's crew + Paul.  With an early start, we made it to Tunnel View in no time.  My third tunnel view of the season...

Martz filing toenails, with Kevin at the helm of his trusty Suby racing up a windy snow covered road... kids don't try this at home.  

oooh....

I decided to use a sled for this trip, mainly as an experiment to see how far I'll be able to take Kai next year... actually worked quite well.  After a slow start, we made it to the hut around 4 pm.  Just in time for the fog to completely white out the slopes below horse ridge as Pace, Kevin, and I went out for a lap.

Soon, we were pretty cozy.  With some wine, beers, and a delicious dinner in our belly, we played liar's dice as our main form of post-dinner entertainment.

The next morning, my usual, Kai-crying-alarm didn't go off, but I woke up early anyway and decided to get some turns in before the day started.  After two laps, I came back in for brekky then we decided to do a group tour up to the eastern edge of Horse Ridge.  

In the Stylee-category, there were two clear contenders.   Gulotta with his Pit Vipers that matched his hat, jacket, and boots...

Or B-nard... I think Gulotta took the cake.  

We cruised out to Horse Ridge where the group split up into folks that wanted to tour out to Buena Vista Peak, and those that wanted to do some laps in Chilli Bowl.  Both great options, but having never been to Buena Vista Peak, I decided to keep on going.  Here is Pace booting up the last section of Buena Vista Peak.  The visibility was pretty horrendous, and Kevin & B-nard had decided to turn around by this point.  

Then it miraculously cleared up for 2 min.  Pace at the top of Buena Vista peak...

30 seconds after this pic was taken we were surrounded by fog.  And had to make braille turns all the way back to the hut.

Where shananigans ensued.  

The view from the base...

Definitely should've brought my helmet for this...

Took some night shots... but sadly didn't have my wide-angle converter lens fully on, so there's some darks spots on the upper left and lower right.  Aargh.  But as you can see, the nights were beautiful.  And cold.  Check out Orion & the Milky Way.

The next morning, I got up on top of Horse Ridge to watch the sunrise, and to see my compatriots file out of the hut and glide across the frozen lake. Zen...

After doing a lap on down a semi-sketchy slope, which sluffed on me, Pace and I decided to hit the Central Chute.  Here's Pace booting up another sugary slope on his way to laying down some pretty turns. 

The main slope after day 1 (my two tracks from the morning...)

And after day 2.  Awesome.  

Our ski out was pretty quick.  It was pretty fun trying to make figure 8 turns on the sled.  Definitely learned that I can't make sharp turns and I need help going down steep slopes.  

Another fun trip out to Ostrander.  My third time out there... all very different and all very fun.  I heart hut trips... these trips always are the highlights of my season.  Very grateful for being able to share this with such a fun crew.