Met up with Stev and John H. at the Woods Lake campground and got our hike on around 8:30 in the am. The early start was mitigated by the 50% chance of precip by the afternoon. We made the 3 mile hike in just under 1.5 hours and were greeted with a decently sized swatch of snow: a consistent 7-turn length; 10-12 if you tossed in a couple of hop turns. I was gung-ho like a mofo, so I banged out 7 runs, the last two under threat of rain and lightning and accompanied by some quadrophonic rolling thunder. It began to rain as we packed up, but stopped just as abruptly as it had started. At Roundtop Lake we ran into Eric and his son Reiger (sp?). Dad was on month 201, skiing exclusively in the Tahoe Basin area; son was on month 42. They didn't seem the least bit concerned about the weather, either (while we yammered with dad, Reiger pulled out some snacks and sat on a wet rock looking a bit bored with the adult talk about skiing). We also ran into a trio of Texans who wondered if skiing in late July like this was normal California behaviour. They were also rather worried about getting struck by lightning. Our hike out was mostly dry, but it began Marmaduking and Garfielding like gangbusters just as we reached the edge of the campground. There we ran into a ponchoed woman who couldn't believe that we'd been skiing and hiking in such weather (she also revealed that she had just come from Kirkwood, a mere 5 miles west, where it had hailed 5 inches and the lightning was fierce and furious). We waited out the short, summer storm in John's camper before going our separate ways for the evening. All in all a crazy day of summer schuss.
“The best place in the world to ski is where you’re skiing that day.” — Warren Miller
