Sierra Cement

I work with skiers. There is no question where the loyalty lies. When the snow falls, the office is empty. And we all like it that way. There is a rare occasion where work does have to come first. I had one of those days this week. All day I sat in my office and watched big, fluffy flakes fly. I hate those days. But I got a tip from a friend that there was a hill in town that was great for a quick apres-work ski.

Jon and I bailed out of work at about 4, ran home, let out the dogs, put on our ski pants and were on the road by 4:15. Yes, there was definite motivation for a powder run. We found the "trailhead" which was really just a spot someone had rammed their truck into and created a parking space. Our friend was nice enough to put the skin track in for us, so we figured we'd make good time and be back at the car by dark. Up, up, up and straight up. Our friend is in really good shape apparently. This skin track was ridiculous. I should have known there was going to be a problem, however, when the snow was sticky enough to ski straight up a hill. That is never a good sign.

But we plugged along, up, up, up, and straight up the hill. At about 5:30, I suggested that rather than tempt fate, we should start our descent. We took off our skins and looked down a lightly treed gully waiting for fresh tracks. Oh, man, were we stoked. At the first drop-kneed turn, however, we both realized that we were in for a long trip down.

Having learned to ski in Colorado, I was used to very light, very fluffy snow. My brief stint in Tahoe introduced me to what is best known as Sierra Cement. Feet upon feet of wet, heavy snow. Usually, this snow settles and isn't bad to ski. When you go out right after a storm, however, you are asking for trouble. And trouble we found. Both of us went over the front of our skis at least 3 times. The cool part was wallowing in 3 feet of wet snow to try to stand up again. At one point I had the pleasure of physically digging out my skis so I could get them on top of the snow.

Our descent took us so long, we were trying to find the road in the dark. Nothing like miscalculating where your car is and having to ski around rolling terrain full of trees in the dark. We finally found the road, but had no idea which way our car was. See, taking vague beta from a friend on a skiing spot you've never even seen in the daylight and starting your ski at 4:45 at night is, in retrospect, not the best idea we've ever had.

After about 10 minutes of erroneously skiing around, we finally decided to go downhill and hope our car was that direction. Mostly because it was easier. Fortunately, shortly after that decision, we found the Volvo.

Aside from the occasional bout with panic, remembering that my phone was in the car, realizing we had no idea where we were, and I could not remember for the life of me if I locked the house, the trip actually turned out to be a beautiful adventure. The moon broke through the clouds that were still spitting out snowflakes here and there and that dreaded Sierra Cement made the whole world silent. The silence was only broken when the trees shed some of that heavy snow.

Had we not miscalculated both our route and our ability to keep our skis afloat, we would have been safely home before dark, watching dogs sleep, and I'm sure, watching the Olympics... again. Instead, we enjoyed some unexpected moonlight skiing and experienced the joys of heavy, wet snow.