About 5 years ago, 8 of my close friends and I did a hut trip from Snowbowl in Tahoe to Squaw.  We stayed at the Benson Hut and then the Bradley Hut.  It was one of the most fun trips because we were all coming off of epic ski seasons from different parts of the west.  This year, I went back to the Benson Hut.  It was completely covered in snow again.  So, it makes it like a dungeon inside because there is no light.  However, we had a great time and way better snow this time.  So, we were able to get some decent turns in and then return back to the cars in one piece…making it an amazing California weekend jaunt.  Some pics are attached.

Day 4 at Squaw Valley for me reminded me of this year’s Quidditch World Cup.  The Villanova Wildcats were outnumbered and overtaken by the Middlebury Panthers (just like game #18).  The Wildcat(s) were able to hold their own, but it was the Panthers’ golden snitch, Devon Magee who ruled the slopes and the Panthers came out victorious.

Bottomline: It was a nice and sunny day of skiing with some buddies, followed by a double dip in our hot tub time machine and a great session at the Slot.  Happy Birthday Marshall.

Yeah.  The stoke or excitement from this past weekend is definitely still resonating.  Last week, I met with 3 guys that I barely knew.  We had one thing in common, backcountry skiing.  We made arrangements to head toward Mt. Shasta for the weekend and attempt a summit and ski descent.  As is, my week had been super stressful…but, on Friday I took the BART to Berkley and we took off.  We camped low, along the base of Shasta that night and made way the next day.  There were already helicopters in the sky, which in the mountains, its never a good sign.  The local Search and Rescue team was trying to evacuate some people from the mountain.  Regardless, we made it up to about 9,100 feet and set up two tents.  We continued up Avalanche Gulch on the south side and took a lap on the skis.  The corn snow was perfect for skiing at about 5 pm.  We used our jetboils to melt snow for water and made a great meal and went to bed.

The next morning, we knew that we wanted a late start to try and allow the snow to soften up throughout the day because of ski conditions and uphill hazards.  We left camp at about 7:45am.  Probably the most dangerous conditions that I have ever seen, were in the gut of Avalanche Gulch.  There were ice chunks and snowballs careening down the icy slope at us.  They would just hiss past your head if you were lucky.  This tweaked me out.  We had one close call and a few pebbles of snow hit my legs like darts.  Some girls the day before were telling us about a guy that got his teeth knocked out.  So, I climbed a steeper route to the looker’s right to avoid the mayhem that was occurring in the gut of Avy Gulch.  It brought some solitude and a great view.

The crew rendezvoused above the red Bluffs and we stashed our skis for the descent and rallied up Misery Hill.  Most other climbers had bailed on the summit at this point.  So, we basically had the whole top of this awesome mountain to ourselves.  It was great.  We got to the top at about 2:30….got back to our skis and skied over 6000 vertical feet back to the tents, packed up and skied down to the car.  We were all super stoked.  Anytime that you can comfortably sleep on snow and crush it to the top of peak, only to get amazing turns to the bottom of the hill…its all good.