Miss my flight back to Sea Town due to all roads out of Tahoe being closed and was forced to stay another day and jump on Pacific Snowcats Cat operation. Up at 7am, over to the office and sign our life away at 8. Load all our shit and off up the trail by 9. 
Hit the middle ground by 10AM and bust out for some beacon training. Bluebird out and things seem to rolling along. By 11AM were in our first run. Odd, as we should be knocking shit out by this time but with 4 feet of new snow on the ground the cats had to work over time to just get up the roads. First runs a mellow warm up so the guides can see where the groups at. Bust up again and roll out a second lap on the mellow run but move it over and let it roll a little more. The rad thing about this cat operation is they don’t give you the extreme dream saga like most cat operations do. They let you haul ass for good amounts of time before sending you back to the cat. This would later come back to haunt them though. Second run complete, time for a new zone so we pack it in the cat again. It’s like 1PM around this time. Shit, we rode in that cat for what seemed like days to get to this new “promised land” but in all reality it was a mellow hour. Hit the new zone and it’s one at a time here, but holy shit was it tasty. Nice fall line down, good pitch then dog leg right to catch the goat trail down to the pick up zone. Super fun but made you itch for more. Back up and we had a pretty cool spread laid out for us for lunch. This chewed up another 45 mins and by this time it’s pushing 3PM. Shit, 3 runs by 3? Roll over for run 4. Homey the guide is around the rock talking about directions to go, maybe one of us heard what he said but whatever, we’ll just follow the leader’s tracks and shit will be cool, right? People start to drop, killing the main vein of der in front of us. Pow plumes were getting laid down. Being a guest, I wait till second to last to go and then have at it. 10 people in front of me but still I’m getting mine. Fly past Ward our Guide and he yells “bust a hard right!” Sweet I think, ole Wards looking out for last guy and giving him some new fresh. All a sudden a bunch of tracks continue to go right onto the goat path that we were on before, but I see 2 sets of tracks continuing down the fall line. Ski tracks, so it had to be the guide leading a couple of bro’s to the Promised Land. I decide to follow. Continue to haul ass, slashing everything in site and feeling pretty hyped. 
Roll past one of our dudes Jim who’s just standing there, but we locked eyes and in that split second I could see that Jim wasn’t to confident of our direction. Whatever, Jims a skier those dudes are always worrying about shit. About a minute later roll into a flat spot and see “Pathfinder” Jared, who led this mission, along with Mr. Harrosh who was only concerned with getting some. And me. The three of us look at each other and the cloud of stupidity came over us. We’re way the fuck off the path. Jim for some unknown reason follows our tracks down against his better judgment and now there’s a forth to the stupid squad. Luckily the cell phone has one bar on it, and call back to the group. Just then the tail gunner guide rolls in shaking his head saying we’re way off course. Long story even longer, it takes some hiking in waist deep powder the length of a football field or two to make it to one of the old roads and in just a short hour from when we stopped Mr. Cat driver shows up and picks our sorry asses up. Day over. Its 5:30PM, shit’s getting dark and we got to get down the hill. Back to Chez Harrosh at 8PM, throw vodka on the rocks down the gullet and back it up with a cognac and its bed time. 4 runs in 12 hours, not ideal but you know what, the only track anyone had to ever cross in those 4 runs were the tracks you chose to cross. So an A+ for effort, A+ for snow conditions, A for cat operation, and a D for execution but no one but Mother Nature can take the blame there. Out of Tahoe at 4AM to try and catch a 7AM flight, stoked on the 48 plus hours of gettin er done. Thanks to the crew at Sierra for the invite. Anytime you got an open seat, I’m in.
Hit the middle ground by 10AM and bust out for some beacon training. Bluebird out and things seem to rolling along. By 11AM were in our first run. Odd, as we should be knocking shit out by this time but with 4 feet of new snow on the ground the cats had to work over time to just get up the roads. First runs a mellow warm up so the guides can see where the groups at. Bust up again and roll out a second lap on the mellow run but move it over and let it roll a little more. The rad thing about this cat operation is they don’t give you the extreme dream saga like most cat operations do. They let you haul ass for good amounts of time before sending you back to the cat. This would later come back to haunt them though. Second run complete, time for a new zone so we pack it in the cat again. It’s like 1PM around this time. Shit, we rode in that cat for what seemed like days to get to this new “promised land” but in all reality it was a mellow hour. Hit the new zone and it’s one at a time here, but holy shit was it tasty. Nice fall line down, good pitch then dog leg right to catch the goat trail down to the pick up zone. Super fun but made you itch for more. Back up and we had a pretty cool spread laid out for us for lunch. This chewed up another 45 mins and by this time it’s pushing 3PM. Shit, 3 runs by 3? Roll over for run 4. Homey the guide is around the rock talking about directions to go, maybe one of us heard what he said but whatever, we’ll just follow the leader’s tracks and shit will be cool, right? People start to drop, killing the main vein of der in front of us. Pow plumes were getting laid down. Being a guest, I wait till second to last to go and then have at it. 10 people in front of me but still I’m getting mine. Fly past Ward our Guide and he yells “bust a hard right!” Sweet I think, ole Wards looking out for last guy and giving him some new fresh. All a sudden a bunch of tracks continue to go right onto the goat path that we were on before, but I see 2 sets of tracks continuing down the fall line. Ski tracks, so it had to be the guide leading a couple of bro’s to the Promised Land. I decide to follow. Continue to haul ass, slashing everything in site and feeling pretty hyped. 
Roll past one of our dudes Jim who’s just standing there, but we locked eyes and in that split second I could see that Jim wasn’t to confident of our direction. Whatever, Jims a skier those dudes are always worrying about shit. About a minute later roll into a flat spot and see “Pathfinder” Jared, who led this mission, along with Mr. Harrosh who was only concerned with getting some. And me. The three of us look at each other and the cloud of stupidity came over us. We’re way the fuck off the path. Jim for some unknown reason follows our tracks down against his better judgment and now there’s a forth to the stupid squad. Luckily the cell phone has one bar on it, and call back to the group. Just then the tail gunner guide rolls in shaking his head saying we’re way off course. Long story even longer, it takes some hiking in waist deep powder the length of a football field or two to make it to one of the old roads and in just a short hour from when we stopped Mr. Cat driver shows up and picks our sorry asses up. Day over. Its 5:30PM, shit’s getting dark and we got to get down the hill. Back to Chez Harrosh at 8PM, throw vodka on the rocks down the gullet and back it up with a cognac and its bed time. 4 runs in 12 hours, not ideal but you know what, the only track anyone had to ever cross in those 4 runs were the tracks you chose to cross. So an A+ for effort, A+ for snow conditions, A for cat operation, and a D for execution but no one but Mother Nature can take the blame there. Out of Tahoe at 4AM to try and catch a 7AM flight, stoked on the 48 plus hours of gettin er done. Thanks to the crew at Sierra for the invite. Anytime you got an open seat, I’m in.
something doesn't look right... wth
ReplyDeletemustache trip eh???
ReplyDeletehow many blogs do i have to keep track of... damn. oh in all seriousness, i know you got asked this already, but can i interview you too? i have some questions and the people want to know. i'll send ya an email.