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.

Weekly Pano: Ostrander!

Ostrander lake from Horse Ridge on my solo morning mission... felt one step closer to enlightenment.

Paul with Yosemite behind...

Pace Ralli-ing up to the top of the ridge with the crew behind.  

Arriving at the top of the ridge

Skins off boys!

The only one shot with my Sony NEX-5... sadly doesn't take as good of panos as my 60$ canon.  Looking back towards the sea of fog.  If you look real, real close you should be able to see my silhouette on the rock in the middle.  

TR: Sonora Pass (5.5.2012) - Leavitt Peak with Johnny

Sonora Pass is a special place.  The pass lying just north of Tioga, it's often overshadowed by it's southern neighbor and is quite neglected.  But there is a sweet spot every year when the pass opens, and there is still plenty of snow to go skiing right from the road.

Friday at noon, the gates to Sonora Pass opened... Sat at 3:30 am I woke up, packed the car and started driving.  By 7 am I met up with Johnny and we were ready to cruise... The mountains here don't get ridden much during the rest of the year.  (unless you have a snowmo, access is FAR).  Gotta say it's a refreshing feeling to get to the top of an 11,500 ft peak and not be able to recognize the surrounding peaks.  We parked at the pass (9624') and followed the PCT south to Leavitt Peak, the most popular target from Sonora Pass. 

This was my 12th day in the BC this year, 11 in the resort, so 23 day on skis total.  Not too bad considering the season didn't start until Jan 21st, and I have a 8 mo. old baby.  
That's Leavitt Peak to the left, and Deadman's on the right.  We booted right up the bowl.  

Summit shot

Check out some of these peaks to the South! Kennedy Peak

Hawksbeak Peak, I believe.  

Another beautiful thing about Sonora Pass it the shuttle option.  From the top of Leavitt peak you can ski down to as far as the snow will let you.  In this case it was around 8500 ft (at "the switchback") where we crossed Deadman Creek to get back to 108.


Thumb a quick ride back to your car, and you are all set!  Coincidentally, I was listening to Freakonomics podcast on the way up about hitchhiking... a fun listen, FYI.  

Night Cap Peak... from near where we descended and started hitching.  Plenty of burly descent options here... maybe not this year, but I'm sure some years there are some lines down that.  The left slope is another popular option for Sonora Pass enthusiasts.

Here's a link to Johnny great post from this trip. http://www.backwoodsbayarea.com/2012/05/cinco-de-my-oh-my-thats-big-peak.html

And his vid

Leavitt Peak | Cinco de Mayo from JonnyB on Vimeo.

And mine.


And from the folks that you can see booting up the Y-couloir while I was skiing down it.
http://www.sierradescents.com/video/2012/05/07/leavitt-peak-groove.html

Benson Hut! Earth Day Festivities...

Some great shots from Johnny. http://www.backwoodsbayarea.com/2012/04/sunshine-skiing.html

Sure was HOT!

Here's the vid from the trip... and pics below.  

@ 1:02 I thought I was gonna pull one of these... http://vimeo.com/33847762

Friday morning, Moses picked us (Kevin & I) at 505 at 5 am.  Drove up to Tahoe, and beat Miley to our Rendez-vous point... here we are sorting supplies... debating which IPA to take to our hut.  

Miley was good enough to spot us a few vouchers for Sugar Bowl, and the snow was already mashed potatoes at 9 am when we got on the lifts.  Kevin had a minor boot problem repaired in the morning, so Miley, Moses and I skied, drank until our beers for lunch break...

After noon, we took off from the top of Mt. Lincoln following the ridge south out to the Benson Hut.  The snow was so sticky we (as in Miley and I) never put on skins.  Tons of broken off cornices and wetslides on the way out... pretty cool... and scary.

Arrival at the hut!  We chilled out in front of the hut for the rest of the day, drinking, talking, throwing snowballs... and mainly giggling.  The snow was quite warm by this point in the day.  Definitely no freezing going on at night, and no corn cycle starting yet... 

A short bootpack from the hut takes you to the top of Anderson.  A pretty good spot for sunrise/sunsets... 

Kevin had a grin on his face the whole first day...

Miley took off to work at 4 am from the hut.  Probably got some decent skiing in.  I took a few runs in the morning... then Kevin, Moses and I skied the north west face of Anderson.  After a few more laps, we saw Metres, Danielle, Sena, Bertram, Jeanie, Jason, and their dog Whiskey come in.  Had another great day of chilin'... goofing off some kickers, and watching the sunsets.  

The next morning, during our morning ski, we heard a loud BOOM!  We thought it might be a huge cornice breaking off... or Squaw or Sugar Bowl bombing... turns out it was a meteor... http://unofficialnetworks.com/news-coverage-of-this-morning-meteor-strike-near-tahoe.-92508/

After skiing out to Sugar Bowl, we got the best run of our day down the groomer from the top of Lincoln to our car.  Drank a few beers we had stashed in the snow in front of our car... headed down to Donner Lake to a public pier and jumped in.  Stopped by Ikeda's on the way home and made it home just in time to enjoy the foggy bay area sunset...

Vid TR: Ostrander

some decent timelapses...
good skiing by Jonny @ 2:20
Kevin @ 2:50

Ze great Ostrander! (Feb 3-5th, 2012)

Haven't got to do a big TR in long time, so here's LONG one.  Get your tall boys ready and read on.

Last summer I decided not to get a season pass nor join a Tahoe cabin for the winter.  Instead, I figured I'd get a bunch of vouchers from going to ski movies & find deals like snowbomb... and trek out to as many huts as possible.

So this year, I was fortunate enough to join Johnny & Co for their annual Ostrander Hut trip.  Conditions were looking quite bleak leading up to the trip, and as a result out of the 15 folks that had paid, only 7 of us (including me) ended up hiking in.  There was quite a debate between Kevin and I about weather we should go or not... we could stay in town watch Kai & Riley wrestle, go to a super bowl party, go sample a Pliny the Younger, mountain bike... etc.  But off we went... and it was awesome!

Went on a nice morning ride with Khalid... this is what I call the 504->505 ride.  Starting at Cafe 504, and ending (for me) at Casa 505.



After work, we went to a Polsa dinner at Lar's and Lauren's... former residence of Patty Hearst (seriously... there's still a few bullet holes in the door way)... Kevin and I hit the road a little after 8 pm.  I took over driving after a last minute grocery stop and after I-580, 205, 99, 120, Old Priest, 120... we got to Tunnel View around midnight.  Playing with my Sony NEX-5n is pretty fun for long exposure night shots. All shot under a waxing moon... the second shot is pretty surreal right?  Too bad it's kinda grainy...

We were planning to ski in under the moonlight, but it was almost 1 am... which meant we probably wouldn't get to the hut until 5 am or so... and we'd only get a few hours of sleep (it's a hut after all... not much privacy for naps).  And we thought better of our plan and crashed in the back of Kevin's suby.  The groomer at Badger Pass hard at work...

Check out Orion & the moon...

Kevin woke up in a nightmare at around 5:20 am... so we just started getting ready and took off down the trail and figured we'd enjoy the sunrise while cruising down the perfectly groomed Glacier Point Rd. 

Here's the route... as marked by my forerunner 305.  The first 4 miles on Glacier Point Rd are relatively quick, and takes about an hour.  Do not put skins on.  Just skate.  Well... we thought that was fast, but the skate skiers go out to Glacier Point and BACK in under 1.5 hours.  21 miles = 14 mph.  Now that's fast...

Anyway, once we got off Glacier Point Rd, there were a few dry patches, but we never had to take our skis off...

We followed a decent skin track the rest of the way.  No post holes!  

At the top of Horizon Ridge, taking in the views... Half Dome, Mt. Hoffman, the Sawtooths, Mt. Starr King, the Clark range... on a beautiful, beautiful day.  

And Kevin eating a cold sausage for brekky... hard core.  

Kevin had a minor "field repair" issue...

but resolved her pretty quickly...

And soon enough we were at the hut, where Johnny, Sara, Evan, Kate, & Bernard had cooked up a fat brekky.  

After destroying the yummy brekky of beef bacon and pancakes, Howard let us use some of his ice skates that he as collected over the years, and soon we gliding on the creaking ice, recalling our skating skills from decades ago.    

Howard has been skating everyday that he has been up at the hut this year... vs a whole 1 hours of skating last year due to the differing weather conditions...

An aerial view of the ice skating area on Ostrander...

After lunch, I decided to go check out the snow across the pond... and was delighted to find that the snow was actually good!  Really good!  Good enough to huck a few 360s, and I was tempted to go inverted... but decided against it in the end.  

I did 2 laps, went and grabbed Kevin & Johnny and did 3 more laps with them, while the rest of the crew caught up the latest New Yorker articles, snacked away on yummy hummus, and took in the view... not a bad alternative.

Sundog! Our optical phenomena for the the trip... oh I caught a moondog too... 

Went back out on the ice for a sunset session...

  

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080119163333AAnSnHc

Sara and Johnny trying to shoot the duck...

We skated for a while under the moonlight, and went in for dinner and whiskey.

The next morning, I got up when nature called... but was too stoked to go back to sleep.  So I decided to tour out to the ridge for a sunrise view.  

Watching the sun slowly creep up on Ostrander was a special sight.  The lake is constantly making noise due to temperature fluctuations and causing the ice to expand and contract.  Initially very freaky... and actually I never got used to it.  Skating across the lake in the morning there were many cracks that would propagate under my skis and shoot out in all directions.  No need for coffee when the ice is constantly fracturing.  

The hut...

Getting up to this view required a "technical" skin up for sure.

And finally... the view!

Back side of Half Dome, Mt. Hoffman, and off in the distance....

The Sawtooths

Went in for breakfast and quickly recruited Kevin, Nard dog, Johnny for a few more laps before we took off.

Tracks from yesterday...

HOAR!

Johnny

Kevin glowing in the morning light.  

Did a pretty good job on the slopes out yonder.

One last chill session before Kevin & I got back to our little tykes.  

On the way out, I didn't want to put on skins.  So I ended up bushwacking through insanity until I finally reached the frozen Bridalveil Creek. The route below?  Straight through the middle.  

Bridalveil Creek was pretty fun as I got to ski on the frozen creek for a few miles down to Glacier Pt Rd where Kevin was waiting... but still not worth it.  

We made pretty good time on our way out, and got to the suby by 3 pm.  Left the parking lot at 3:30, and we were home by 7 pm, about a minute after the final whistle of the Super Bowl.  

The essential view of the Captain on our drive out... 

UPDATE:  

Check out Snowyphotos! http://www.snowyphotos.com/2012/02/february-3rd-5th-2012-ostrander.html

As well as Johnny's site: http://www.backwoodsbayarea.com/2012/02/back-to-ostrander.html