Squaw Valley
Saturday 13 March 1993

Weather

Spring skiing conditions. After a very brief shower early in the morning, the sun shone strongly all day resulting in heavy conditions, particularly at base level.

Overall

A memorable group trip up to Lake Tahoe, involving James de Raeve, Roy McKean, Graham Bird, Walter Stalecker and Richard Straub.

This was a very varied and exciting day, finally cut short at 2:30 because of the effects of extremely heavy conditions on very tired legs.

It did not start out too well. When we arrived at Squaw Valley it was raining at the village level. This stopped during breakfast and the sun shone strongly all day.

We started at the upper level, skiing first from the Emigrant lift and later from Granite Chief and Shirley Lake. The first excitement of the day came when James, Roy and I tried to traverse across from the top of Granite Chief to the top of the gondola. This involved a narrow, path. I caught a ski, fell and one of my skis ended up some way down a pretty steep ungroomed area.

Roy McKean took off down the slope and rescued my ski. I followed on one ski and fell and then slid for a,long way, coming to rest at the tree line. Eventually Roy brought the ski down and we had a little bit of a hike and we got down.

Some of the most enjoyable skiing of the day was off the Headwall lift. There were moguls, but they were in great condition and very skiable. We tool several runs off this before descending to the village level and crossing to Squaw Creek to met everyone else for lunch.

From their Walter Stahlecker took the lead. From the top of Squaw Creek lift, Walter headed for the woods and ended up at the top of a very steep narrow run. I traversed through the trees, not easy and was very glad of Richard Straub's help in escaping.

From their we took Olympic Lady to the top of KT-22. The KT-22 lift itself serves the seriously difficult KT-22 but offers an escape down a much easier route. Olympic Lady serves only KT-22!

The slope was steep, with a cornice at the top, heavily mogulled and the snow itself was heavy because of the heat. I took a deep breath, slid over the cornice and managed two turns, without much control before coming to grief against a large mogul.

Then the others came over. Every single one of them fell on either the first or second turn, some very hard. I am sure that if I had not gone first I would still be there now.

The descent was long, tiring and time comsuming. A combination of slow turns followed by out of control traverses, with some falls and some step turns got me to the bottom, but the legs were gone.

Vertical (feet)

13500

Intermediate Runs

Siberia Express - High speed quad across intermediate level bowl. The runs at the top are steep and graded black. Lower runs were wide and easy.
Mainline - Short lift to middle of bowl. Easy intermediate area.
Emigrant - Lift to top of Emigrant hill (8700 feet) with access in many different directiond
Shirley Lake Express - High speed quad serving bowl with mostly intermediate level runs but one mogul run
Solitude - Parallel to Shirley Lake Express
Big Red - Lift from base to peak of Snow King and long quite difficult descent to squaw creek. Rated blue, with some black cut offs, the run was heavy and mogulled.
Squaw Creek - Lift back from Squaw Creek to Snow King peak. Lead by Walter Stahelcker, we ended up in a very steep narrow run through the trees culminating in a traverse through deep snow among the trees.

Advanced Runs

Granite Chief - Big lines for this lift and the best snow of the day on a North facing slope. Lead to Granite Chief peak (9050 feet). All runs were steep at the top with an easier run out at the bottom. On one run we found ourself at the top of a cornice and got into some trouble getting down.
Headwall - All runs rated black. This was an enjoyable and varied run with many moguls but skiable.
Olympic Lady - Ended up here after lunch. This run leads to the top of the famous KT22 and there is only 1 run down. It is steep and heavily mogulled. Not much fun!