It’s days like this in Tahoe that I’m very grateful I have been able to put together quite an adept camera kit for a trip like I’m on.

For those that don’t/may not/probably don’t care, I’m in Tahoe for the season. No work. Just play.

Truth be told I probably should have headed to Colorado, but the budget didn’t really allow for it and I really did land on my feet with the place we’ve got here in Tahoe.

Not much research was done into snowfalls – I just remember seeing photos of the place as a kid and always wanting to go.

That being said, I’m sure some of you are aware, we’ve not been the luckiest when it has come to snowfall. It’s days (and in our case weeks) like this that really test people’s patience for one, but I’ve also found it’s a test of character. On every lift there is someone complaining about the thin cover, the lack of snow fall, the constant stretch of bluebird days. How they are getting spring conditions through December. (We have, I’ve been rocking a hoodie, tee and no leg thermals for over a week now!)

However! While the runs are full of people who should NOT be on them, before you attack me about how pompous that sounds, take a minute to hear me out. I understand it’s holiday season and crowds can be frustrating (waiting in a 35 minute lift line at Northstar wasn’t fun) but I cannot understand families that bring their children, or groups of tourists who insist on embarking on intermediate and advanced terrain, not only when there is snow, but when there is a distinct lack of it, making things even more difficult when they are unable to dodge rocks, stumps etc. Pile-ups hurt people. That’s the part I don’t appreciate.

In any case, this is about stoke, at the end of the day. So back on track.

The camera kit has been a work in progress over the last few years once I made the switch from Nikon over to Canon. And it’s times like this when I can get to the very well maintained parks around the area and satisfy the trigger finger in me.

I love shooting snowboarding, I could sit in the parks and shoot ALL day and be just as happy as if I had ridden a couple of feet of powder. You can be out there all day and all it takes is one shot to make it all worthwhile.

That was the case at Northstar.

With huge crowds and ordinary cover, after a few runs with my brother and a couple of mates I decided to head down pinball to shoot the big jump line and make my way down to the jib features.

While I purchased my new camera a while before I made the trip over here, I hadn’t really had a decent time to play with the shutter speed capabilities of the EOS 1DX.

This skier, who’s name I am not aware of, made my day with this grabbed 900.

The shot was taken through the 8-15mm F4L Fisheye and put together on photoshop. I actually had to remove about 6 or 7 frames to make the sequence easier on the eye.

It’s stretches of weather like this that I really love getting out and making the absolute most of it and for me, that means lugging around many extra KGs (or pounds, for those north of the equator on a regular basis) of camera gear to get the right shot.

See, I don’t mind the sunny days. I can deal with the crowds as long as it’s just me getting to and from where I’m shooting, which is normally only a couple of runs a day. And when a rider or skier can come through a good sized booter and whip out something as impressive as this, I could shoot all day.

So thank you, unknown skier, and in return, I can share this with everyone.

Stoked!

Instagram: @grahamgee

Web: www.grahamgee.com

If there’s one thing that I still cannot wrap my head around about Tahoe is how much is at your doorstep.

We took a trip today on advice from one of Joel’s buddies back home and as it was, I was recommended to the same places by a member of an online forum.

A huge part of the reason I decided to forfeit the ease of a job on a hill in Canada and not work here in the states was because I’d always wanted to come to Tahoe, ever since I saw photos of Heavenly overlooking the lake when I was a lot younger.

This place has not disappointed me yet.

The trip today was literally fifteen or twenty minutes from our apartment.

Fallen Leaf Lake is a little higher that Lake Tahoe. A 3 mile long, 1 mile wide body of water, 400ft deep at it’s deepest point. The homes that line the shoreline are nothing short of impressive and the views they share are second to none. A really cool little hidden gem not far off the 89.

From there, we went around to Emerald Bay. A fairly enclosed body on the South West side of Lake Tahoe. Home to Tahoe’s only island, Fannette Island.

The views to be had on the 89 as well as the walk down to the shoreline are full of colour. On the way back up to the top lookout point we saw the result of a lucky couple getting engaged and a few elderly people trying to operate their ipad while they were crying to try and get a picture. It seems like it’s quite a popular place to do such a thing.

We’ve been pretty lucky in the sense that the weather here has been perfect for this kind of thing and I’m really happy we’ve got to see what we have in this light. It would be nice to get some snow but we’re not too worried just yet. Heavenly doesn’t open up for about 10 days so we’re taking off to Salt Lake City and Denver for a bit of a road trip before a few buddies make their way down to ride with us.

Yours truly. The 16-35mm working wonders on my arm.

The last week had been a lot of fun. Adam made is way over to Tahoe from Vegas to come ride for a few days and we were able to get out to Emerald Bay for him to see a bit of the scenery as well. We hadn’t had much snow so decided to get around to Northstar, Heavenly and Kirkwood while he was here and at least get a taste of what they all had on offer. Northstar was the pick as they’d had a little bit of snow and had enough park features set up along with a couple of kickers to help get back into the swing of things as far as jumps go.

The night before Adam left we decided to head out for a few drinks and a bit of shuffleboard at Whiskey Dicks. A favorite bar here of Joel and mine. Shuffleboard was on the house as the coin slot was broken. That set the tone for the rest of the night.

We tucked in to a few drinks sitting at the bar and had plenty of laughs. It was really cool to have another guy around to share the laughs with. The jukebox was fed and there was plenty of talk about the riding, expected snowfall (a particular favorite topic for Joel, as he’s constantly monitoring the snow reports and updating us on the changes made to the predictions online).

Adam awoke the next morning at 5:15 am to get ready for his shuttle off to Reno. To say he was feeling worse for wear would probably be an understatement. It kinda sucked as far as his luck went that we didn’t get much in the way of snow. Especially given what began happening Friday evening…

The stars disappeared and the flakes slowly started falling. Soon after you could barely see a thing for the snow. We’re living at around 6000 ft. Tahoe Level. In the space of about an hour we saw between 1 and 2 inches of snow just where we were. Needless to say I was excited. Heading to bed though, I guess I kind of figured it to stop at some stage overnight.

Wrong.

We got hammered with snow.

Ranger Stacey @ 8pm Friday night.

I came out to our complex car park to find our truck buried in snow. The tray in the back was filled past level, there was well over a foot of snow stacked on top of the roof and snow had swallowed the whole area.

It was bedlam heading to the gondola this morning. Cars had skidded into the snow dumps in the middle of the road formed by the tireless ploughing efforts which no doubt continued all through the night.

The Carpark, Saturday Morning.

Heavenly recorded a total of 24″-30″. Kirkwood was the recipient of a massive 36″ fall overnight.

The riding was super fun, plowing through some super fun lines in some of the softest snow I’ve ever ridden definitely brought the smile out and has me really excited to get out and do it again.

My brother turns up in a little over a week and I’m super excited to head out and strap in to ride with him again – it’s been far too long!

Download on the Heavenly Gondola, overlooking South Lake.

]]> http://spreadstoke.com/snow/tahoe-winter-storm-2013-calm-before-the-storm/feed/ 0 http://spreadstoke.com/snow/breckenridge-colorado-perfect-day/ http://spreadstoke.com/snow/breckenridge-colorado-perfect-day/#comments Sun, 08 Dec 2013 23:49:26 +0000 http://spreadstoke.com/?p=875 As the Colorado Rockies have been seeing some early snow, Joel and I sat down and nutted out a trip to Denver to make use of the resorts on offer with the epic pass. Originally we had planned to drive, but the 16 hour drive there and back had us leaning towards flying, and fly we did. We arrived in Denver last Sunday after riding opening day at Heavenly. Tahoe hasn’t had a great deal of snow so only one run was open at Heavenly but to finally ride down that mountain looking over Lake Tahoe was really something else. There’s a lot of satisfaction involved in getting somewhere and doing something you’ve always wanted to do. That aside, we were psyched to be on the road and in the air and to get to Denver and ride some open terrain. Denver copped a few inches of snow the night before we got here and snowed steadily the first day we rode. It set us up for a super fun week, of which we’ve got a couple more days to get a few more good rides in before we head back to Tahoe, hopefully to more snow. By chance on the way out for a few beers we ran into an Australian couple in a store we were checking out. The accents really catch your ear when you’re around nothing but Americans and they gave us a few tips as to where to head for a cheap drink. We ended up catching them between rides the following day and we’ve spent a chill couple of days hanging out with them. Today, Dom and his girlfriend Adele came along to Keystone with us and it’s been nothing but good times with these two people. The snow they got here on those first couple of days set us up for a perfect week of nothing but clear blue skies and fast, fast riding. The T-Bar had opened and we got plenty of untracked lines through the glades close enough to the peak here at Breck, but not without a hiccup. As it was all fairly new snow, the third day of use I had on a brand new board resulted in a base puncture and a trip to the tune shop to get some P-Tex and a base grind to get her back to good as new. The fifty bucks was well worth the fresh turns we got on those few runs. Keystone today was super fun. Some of the longest runs I’ve ever ridden, Whistler aside. They really make the longer trips up the chairs and gondolas worthwhile. We were misled as far as how long the free bus trip to Keystone would take, in the end it was about an hour and a half. Under estimated by approximately an hour and ten minutes. Brilliant. The trip wasn’t without it’s characters though. We stopped at a hospital and met a skier who had just left after receiving a total of 84 stitches taking a tomahawk tumble down a cliff. An old guy, presumably drunk, handed him quite a decent amount of marijuana saying “My friend, you look like you’re in pain”. It’s very legal in Denver, but you can’t drink a beer anywhere but a bar. Go figure. It was a funny trip none the less. We’re looking forward to a chill last couple of days here in Breckenridge before heading back home. A buddy Adam will be at our place by the time we’re home and is staying for about a week then it’s not too long til my little brother heads down to spend Christmas with us. The next few months are shaping up to be super fun. Will be sure to keep updates coming. Cheers amigos! G]]>

As the Colorado Rockies have been seeing some early snow, Joel and I sat down and nutted out a trip to Denver to make use of the resorts on offer with the epic pass. Originally we had planned to drive, but the 16 hour drive there and back had us leaning towards flying, and fly we did.

We arrived in Denver last Sunday after riding opening day at Heavenly. Tahoe hasn’t had a great deal of snow so only one run was open at Heavenly but to finally ride down that mountain looking over Lake Tahoe was really something else. There’s a lot of satisfaction involved in getting somewhere and doing something you’ve always wanted to do. That aside, we were psyched to be on the road and in the air and to get to Denver and ride some open terrain.

Joel lining up at the Rocky Mountain Express.

Denver copped a few inches of snow the night before we got here and snowed steadily the first day we rode. It set us up for a super fun week, of which we’ve got a couple more days to get a few more good rides in before we head back to Tahoe, hopefully to more snow.

By chance on the way out for a few beers we ran into an Australian couple in a store we were checking out. The accents really catch your ear when you’re around nothing but Americans and they gave us a few tips as to where to head for a cheap drink. We ended up catching them between rides the following day and we’ve spent a chill couple of days hanging out with them. Today, Dom and his girlfriend Adele came along to Keystone with us and it’s been nothing but good times with these two people.

Yours Truly, Top of the World at Breck.

The snow they got here on those first couple of days set us up for a perfect week of nothing but clear blue skies and fast, fast riding. The T-Bar had opened and we got plenty of untracked lines through the glades close enough to the peak here at Breck, but not without a hiccup. As it was all fairly new snow, the third day of use I had on a brand new board resulted in a base puncture and a trip to the tune shop to get some P-Tex and a base grind to get her back to good as new. The fifty bucks was well worth the fresh turns we got on those few runs.

Keystone today was super fun. Some of the longest runs I’ve ever ridden, Whistler aside. They really make the longer trips up the chairs and gondolas worthwhile. We were misled as far as how long the free bus trip to Keystone would take, in the end it was about an hour and a half. Under estimated by approximately an hour and ten minutes. Brilliant. The trip wasn’t without it’s characters though. We stopped at a hospital and met a skier who had just left after receiving a total of 84 stitches taking a tomahawk tumble down a cliff. An old guy, presumably drunk, handed him quite a decent amount of marijuana saying “My friend, you look like you’re in pain”. It’s very legal in Denver, but you can’t drink a beer anywhere but a bar. Go figure. It was a funny trip none the less.

We’re looking forward to a chill last couple of days here in Breckenridge before heading back home. A buddy Adam will be at our place by the time we’re home and is staying for about a week then it’s not too long til my little brother heads down to spend Christmas with us.

The next few months are shaping up to be super fun. Will be sure to keep updates coming.

Cheers amigos!

G

Everything so far with regards to planning for this trip has gone absolutely seamlessly. It’s almost as if Joel and I are waiting for something to go absolutely HORRIBLY wrong.

It’s a good thing, we had a great trip over from Sydney right through to San Francisco where we met the couple that we have leased the apartment off for the season. Two super nice people who have done a lot to make this apartment so comfortable to live in. They’re the same people who have let us use their truck for the season, which has proved to be such a help, especially on a day like today. Our trip to Reno.

Before we left I’d arranged a supply of beer from PBR. Today, we went to pick it up. 20 cartons of 24 16oz (473ml) cans.

480 cans of beer.  227 Litres.

We drove out to Reno in our truck, a 2001 Ford Ranger XLT. Aptly named ‘Ranger Stacey’. The drives around here are absolutely stunning. The mountains drop off on the North Eastern side of Lake Tahoe and the decline opens up to the dry desert area of Carson City, Nevada. A perfect day for a great road trip.

This was also the first time I had properly been able to give my filter set a good go and see some results I’m reasonably happy with. I’ve got more coming and really looking forward to having those for this trip.

I’d also like to thank everyone for the birthday love from back home. They’re a day ahead and the flood of messages and well wishes from friends and family was really nice to come home to see. None more so, than the message I received from my girlfriend.

So cheers to free beers!

G