Two chutes for Saturday! Slept in, had a leisurely b-fast and by noon I was headed out toward one of my favorite spring/summer skiing spots outside of Truckee: Mt. Lola. This time, however, I decided to see how far National Forest Land Road 86 (one of the roads that takes you to Meadow Lake) went. I got skunked out by snow mounds about 5 3/4 miles in, so I turned the Taco Mama around (always wise to be set-up for a quick getaway), geared up and began hiking toward what I hoped would be a decent sliver of snow to ski (I basically saw some white through the thick trees and went for it). My gambit was paid off by two sweet chutes and some pretty decent snow. I dry hiked most of the way and then boot-packed the last little bit. I scoped out the ridge and was afforded a nice view of the backside of Lola (holding insanely long ribbons of snow) and the surrounding area. My first "run" was a 2 turn/traverse/2 turn warm-up on a steep side slope where the snow was on the creme brulee tip. Then I did a quick boot pack back up and skied the first chute proper, banging out 15 turns. I ate lunch at the bottom, switched back into my hiking boots and rock scrambled over to the second chute. I scoped out a couple of other lines that were up there, growing the count to a total of 4 chutes. I went back and skied the second chute, which was a natural half-pipe. The bonus was that I was pretty much able to ski all the way back to the road, snagging a 4 turn patch, then walking across dirt to ski an 8 turn patch, and ending on a long traverse-ending-in-3-turns bit of snow. Apres skiing I drove to Jackson Lake and did a bit of recon out toward Bowman Lake/Catfish Lake/and the back road to Meadow Lake (didn't find anything worth hiking to, though). Nice, quick Saturday schuss.
“The best place in the world to ski is where you’re skiing that day.” — Warren Miller
