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Incredibly fat snowpack in Deso. Also, there are some skeeters out.

As stated earlier, Deso snowpack is fat



3 days n 2 nights of riding and snowcamping and it snowed the whole time



The Zone had some flat light but was shredable


Will be Goin back for more on Tuesday

For those bay area folks who head into Tahoe via Echo summit, in case you didn't know, Hwy 50 is going to be closed at Echo summit for about 2 weeks starting May 11:

http://www.way2tahoe.com/

Also, the Caltrans site seems to indicate that Monitor pass is open, can any locals confirm?

Lots to do on Echo


There are rocks the size of cars melting out on hyway 50, it will probably take more than 2 weeks. They are plowing Johnson pass for the locals, but pretty sure you need local ID to get through. Sorry no info on monitor

$ in May

May 18th 2011
Be carefull out there Cali splitters


Its still full on winter in the money zones, and dont fool yourself May powder is o so choice!

Was headed up gold peak (near squaw) today. Snow on the south side doesn't start consistently until about 6500 feet, oh and got turned around and had my line poached by a family of bears. Forget avy danger seems like more and more people are running into bears.

So we went out to Saddlebag this past weekend. Coverage is still surprisingly good, though the suncups were pretty bad. But it is August after all, so can't complain too much! The best snow I saw was in the protected entrance of the narrow camp chute above Greenstone... makes me think that the North Peak chutes might still be decent. The Conness chutes and S chute etc were pretty textured. I ended up riding the snow finger and Greenstone camp chute. Snow didn't actually soften up that much, so might have been more fun if it were actually warmer.

Here are a few pics.

It was a multi-sport weekend, so we started of Sat at Northstar for some lift-served downhill mountain biking, powered by Vienna Sausage!



Driving up to Saddlebag on Sun. Ellery looking pretty dry!



In my haste to catch the boat, I manage to leave my camera in the car. So the rest of these are crappy cell phone pics.

Flinty's and snow finger



S chute



Looking up towards Conness



We hiked up to Y chute, but found that it doesn't go all the way, and is pretty suncupped.

Got suncups?



Base of Y chute



Conness glacier is showing



Huge schrunds on the Conness chutes



Backside of North Peak. Wonder how the chutes are holding up... might be decent since they are more protected.



Best snow of the day. Entrance to Greenstone camp chute:



View of the rollover from the top



Looking back up from Greenstone



Wavy Dave, waiting for the boat taxi



Taking the boat taxi back, Dana in the background. It sure is nice not to have to hike the road and around the lake!