Diamond Peak 4-8-11

When I got up Thursday morning at our hotel in Berkeley, the road
reports said that chains were required on all the roads over the
Sierra, so I abandoned my plans to say in Reno and made reservations
to stay in Auburn, down below the snow level on this side of the
crest. The day was cold and windy in the Bay Area, and there were
reports of snow an rain all over the state. However, by morning I80
was clear of restrictions so I headed up the hill.

There was snow on the roadside from about 4000 feet elevation on up,
and snow falling near the summit although the sun was shining, no
wind, and no clouds visible. Perhaps it was just forming in clear
air.

I arrived at Diamond Peak early enough to park right next to one of
the lifts (as in put my skis on the snow, click in, and shuffle over
to the lift). I paid $49 for a lift ticket, but people I met on the
lift told me later that I could have gotten 50% off if I had shown my
Snow Summit season pass.

Snow had fallen intermittently all night and continued through the
day. There was about 3" accumulated on top of a frozen groom
surface. On areas that had not been recently groomed, the
accumulation was just enough to mask the uneven frozen crap below,
making those areas unpleasant to deadly.

Diamond Peak is laid out with a handful of trails coming down from a
ridgeline to the right served by a 800'-vertical slow quad chair (a
Dopplemayer with treadmill loading platform, a device I had never seen
before) and a single 1500' HSQ up to a peak on the left with a half-
dozen nice trails down from there, including one down the ridgeline
that links with the other set of trails. I ran pretty much without
liftline delays all day, stopping twice for meals (moderately
expensive food).

The small storms and interleaved sunny stretches made the view of the
lake and mountains intersting all day. I was debating with myself the
philosphical question of whether snow falling on the lake was wasted.

I left a little early to avoid snow on I80 over the summit, and the
sun was shining on me most of the way. The heaviest precipitation I
encountered was a snow/sleet dump with fat sleet-balls big enougn to
bounce and roll down the road just above Auburn that had traffic
slowed down to about 35. And it's cold here tonight.

Tomorrow off to Homewood if the weather looks good.



The view from the

On Apr 9, 1:59*am, Richard Henry wrote:
(snipped)

I moved to Tahoe in 1975. I think I skied twice before the 79
season....on the snow that is. I was a waterski devotee at the time.
But I lived in Incline and the ski area took the town name back then.
I worked construction and spent some time working at those little
casino's on the stateline there on the N. Shore. Did you get to those?
When I drove through a few years ago it seemed like pretty much the
same little town as years ago.