Freestyle Schadenfreude

I do love me some Olympics, especially Winter Olympics, and the Sochi 2014 Olympics TV coverage starts tonight in The States.

The Sochi Buzz has slowly been ramping-up over the past six-or-so weeks. I haven't written about it because until the hordes of Athletes, Western Sportswriters, and TV Talking Heads began to arrive in Sochi, most of the stories were political in nature.

All the Sochi coverage before this week was in the  'Is Sochi Safe From Terrorism?' vein...not exactly my cuppa tea...I remember the 1972 Munich Massacre vividly to this day...not a pretty picture.

Putin's Russia does have regional enemies, and they're using terrorism to bloody effect in Stalingrad (now called Volograd) in October 2013 and December 2013. Enough said.

This week the Sochi News is the comedy flip-side of the dark worries that went before.

As with all things human of late, social media have carried the ball to hilarious effect.

This morning, ABC's Good Morning America did a story on @SochiProblems the snarky new Twitter account that tweets all things #SochiFail

Russia's spent uphill of $51 Billion to build the seaside Olympic Village and Alpine venues...but they're running just a little behind. Hotels without running water, missing finishing touches, WiFi network Phishing MalWare, even streets missing manhole covers!

 

Toilet Humor abounds in Sochi it seems...

 

I've been ice fishing many times...but never considered the indoor angling opportunities cited in this Sochi Bathroom Plaque!

Long time readers will remember my recommendation of @MagnifyRoads the local that tweets all of CalTrans' I-80 electronic signboards every time their message changes. I've written that these messages are more useful than a weather app in telling me what I need to know about the weather on My Mountain in Real Time.

Magnifeye's proprietor is in Sochi as a volunteer, and has a Tumblr Blog you can follow for the latest. Today's entry mentions his three foot fall into an open manhole!

@MagnifeyeRoads' Jonathan Sass

Somehow in the run-up to Sochi2014, I missed the fact that Sochi is a resort built on the shores of the Black Sea! Wikipedia says Sochi has a Sub-Tropical climate!? Wow, think 'Lake Effect Snow' on steroids!

I found an online story about avalanche control above Rosa Khutor, the Alpine resort where Sochi's Alpine events will be held. Rosa Khutor lies 25 miles from the Black Sea Shore, where 3+ foot snowfall in a day is not uncommon...hence the linked story that features  explosives in a Non-Terrorism context.

Sochi2014 is on NBC-TV in The States, and Sochi is 12 hours ahead of the West Coast of America, so most of NBC's Broadcast coverage will be Tape-Delayed.

With SocialMedia saturation, it's going to be hard to avoid spoilers...thankfully, NBC is streaming everything that happens in Sochi LIVE online.

I for one am ready to settle in and watch The Games...Best of luck to Sochi2014, the athletes and Organizers!

What A Difference

...a week makes!

On Interstate 80, chain controls moved downhill overnight to Drum on the west side and the Nevada State Line to the east. This morning they're back up to Kingvale to Donner Lake Interchange.

After 36 hours of rain, snowfall finally piled up. Resorts are reporting up to four feet on top!

Let's all be careful out there...The Sierra Avalanche Center warns of Considerable Avalanche Danger: Due to the combination of several feet of new snow and persistent deep slab instability, large destructive avalanches are possible today.

Good, chain controls on 80 lifted at 10AM.

KCRA3's Chief Meteorologist, @kcraFinan tweets: "Runoff from the storm continues. Folsom Lake is up 5 feet overnight, 15 feet in the last 5 days"

A couple more days of snow showers and maybe a thunder shower this afternoon are on tap, and the winds have abated...

Have at it everybody...but mind your avalanche hazards!

Hazy Daze

I'm still in a haze I guess... 

Big winds all night, they even blew my DSL offline for a few minutes! 

A little bit of snow whitened up the neighborhood in the morning. 

News of another avalanche victim in the Tahoe Sierra broke via Twitter over the weekend and made the local press on Monday. Poaching doesn't pay...

One of my favorite Rock n' Roll guitarists, Ronnie Montrose passed away Saturday . RIP Ronnie... Ronnie's 1978 "Open Fire" album has what I consider to be the best version of "Town Without Pity" ever recorded. YouTube has a good version from Midnight Special in 1978, and a 1991 show.

On life's lighter side, The Giants are at Spring Training and walloped the LA Dodgers today. This game was not on TV or radio. 

Monday's game was on television, and it was great to hear Giants' golden throated announcers, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper doing play-by-play again. For my money, they're the best announcing team the Giants have had in my lifetime...that includes Hall Of Famers, Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons (who called the Giants when they went to their first World Series as the San Francisco Giants in 1962) 

In spring training, the score isn't important. Pitchers usually pitch 30 or less pitches, and games are nine innings...even if the score is tied. The idea is to get everyone, returning stars and prospects alike some playing time in a game situation...without hurting anyone.

In the morning I'll shovel the driveway yet again. I may churn up a batch of ice cream while the driveway melts...

Phobos/Grunt Watch...Epilogue

What a pleasant surprise! Phobos/Grunt news after all this time.

The truth is, I need some distraction tonight...it's been a tough couple of days...

We've been hunkered down during the biggest storm period of the Winter...avalanche warnings were up, as were the winds during the storm period.

Today three skiers decided to do a little backcountry skiing in Ward Canyon, despite the heavy snowfall and wind loading that caused the Sierra Avalanche Center to post High Avalanche Danger first thing in the morning. The lure of Champagne Powder can be hard to resist...especially this lean Winter...

The three found their avalanche, and one skier was swept 300 feet downslope. Luckily two were unhurt...one skied out for help, one stayed with the victim. I saw the story in @CorduroyPlanet's Twitter timeline. The local paper had the story that lit up all the regional news outlets from Sacramento to Reno.

On the evening news, a Placer County Sheriff's Deputy said: "The victim was wrapped around a tree with several fractures"

After my "evening nap" I saw the tweet announcing the victim's passing...so sad...Unofficial Squaw had the story. Avalanches are serious business, especially in the uncontrolled backcountry...

So, it was a happy distraction when I discovered this Phobos/Grunt story at Space Safety Magazine.

I find it disconcerting that the only manned space program on Earth has returned to Soviet Era Secrecy. American astronauts ride Russian rockets and spacecraft to and from the International Space Station. Only a willingly blind fool doesn't see trouble on the horizon.

I pray that the next few years are uneventful. NASA won't have manned launch capability until 2015 at the earliest. Godspeed, indeed...

High Contrast

Yin and yang in Sunday's mountain news.

Truckee's local fishwrap worked overtime on the holiday weekend to report: "Dry Conditions Posing Problems for Tahoe Region Wildlife" Bad News Bears...

The news from Stevens Pass in Washington State is about too much snow: "Avalanche Takes Three Lives Near Stevens Pass"

That's "Our Snow" falling in the Pacific Northwest courtesy of La Niña's tendency to split our cold fronts.

This year's La Niña seems to shaping up to be especially deadly for beast and man!

By Monday noon, the story was even being reported in Europe. Friend of @CorduroyPlanet, PlanetSki has the names. Perhaps because European skiers have been having high avalanche danger in their mountains too.

Even Royalty have been avalanche victims. Dutch Prince, Johan Frisco was hit by a slide Friday in Lech, Austria. He survived 15 minutes buried in the avalanche debris, and remains in critical condition in an Innsbruck hospital.

Both the Washington group and the Dutch Prince were skiing out of bounds. Both groups decided to ski outside of controlled slopes during High Avalanche Warnings. Swept away survivors on both continents wore and deployed airbags.

It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature. I opined on avalanche danger back in August 2009. Titled  "Poaching" it was the 19th CorduroyPlanet Post ever.

Sidelined

Well, it's officially serious in the High Sierra.

Last night I woke up in time to see a Tweet saying the Interstate was closed.

No problemo, I'll just talk my way on like I always do...

You know what they say about "The best laid plans of mice and men"...

I hit my driveway 40 minutes early...I fired up the Honda Snowblower, and blew the driveway and the berm while warming up the Parts Runner.

I loaded up and rolled down the hill and into the breach...I didn't try to "talk my way on" at Donnergate, opting instead to roll up to the Donner Lake Interchange, where the more realistic CalTrans guys hold sway.

Cool! No CalTrans truck at the DLI Onramp! I'm in there!
As I made the turn up the onramp and entered the Fwy, there was the CalTrans truck with his beacon blazing...I pulled up and rolled down my window. The usually compliant CalTrans Guy only had bad news...he's love to let me on, but avalanche debris was across all three lanes, and there was no estimate of when the lanes might be cleared.

Disappointed, I turned towards home...I thought WTF, and drove into town to do my grocery shopping...sans shopping list...

At 0300, I tried again...back at DLI, the same CalTrans Guy was a little more forthcoming...the Eastbound side was worse...snowcats are having a hard time getting through!

I surrendered...and turned onto I80East...curiously, there were snowcat tracks heading west in the eastbound slow lane!

Back at the DaveCave, I jacked into the WorldWideWeb and beagan a tour of the relevant webcams and websites...TV wasn't yet in Local Mode, and I called Jeweler who was on My Mountain...Jeweler had a good handle on things. I reminded him of the priorities...don't worry about the grooming I told him, keep those roads to the mountaintops open! Graveyard Wrench couldn't get to work either, but the Graveyard Park Guy had stayed on the mountain, so there were plenty of horses on the track.

I even fired up the Police Scanner. I listened in vain for some CalTrans radio traffic...the avalanche scene was around the corner, and FM radio is line of sight...nothing to hear here...move along...

When the local news started at 0430, the story was all weather all the time. They even teased the I-80 won't reopen until midnight "story"...Westbound finally opened a little after noon...we'll try again tonight!

Tongue Tired

What am I doing up? Perhaps last night's trouble free shift didn't take enough out of me?

So I woke up at 5PM...the TV was on (I fell asleep watching something on my DVR)...amazingly the tube was showing Regularly Scheduled Programming, not Special Storm-Watch News!

I changed channels...no worries, KCRA3 was offering the "Severe Weather First Alert" version of their "KCRA News at Five"...lots of flooded roads, satellite maps, and weather-beaten reporters on remote feeds from the most telegenic locations.

Interstate 80 is closed for zero visibility and avalanches...one reporter waded into the debris field of a slide that landed on the number two lane westbound...I saw some small debris fields on the shoulder on my way home this morning.

I guess I'm just numb...yeah the TV people are reporting that the CHP has closed the Interstate until at least midnight...I'll just talk my way on like I do every time the highway is closed...it's a Brothers In Arms deal...fellow Storm Fighters gettin' 'er done...yeah, yeah, SOP, whatever...

I guess, I'm just worn down...no snarky retorts ...or thoughts for that matter...all my crew have become automatons...work...sleep...drive home...drive to work...work...sleep...do it over again...and again...

The weatherman says we'll get a break next week...I'll enjoy it when it gets here...meanwhile, call me tongue tied...

I take solace in knowing that Baseball Season begins in earnest in under seven days...put me in coach...

Good night!

Encore

Another blast of Winter pummeled my mountain overnight.

It all started innocently enough, I overslept...my first 11+ hour shift in over a month took it's toll...throw in the extra work of snow removal at the DaveCave, and I guess I needed every wink I could eke out.

Looking out the window as I turned on the shower, I noted one new inch on the front deck. Up in the driveway, there were two inches...not enough to deploy the snowblower, so off to work I went.

I parked in two inches of fresh snow, and trundled up the shop road. Everyone was there, and the fleet was whole as well. Plenty of digging to do, and the forecast promised another pounding.

We began with some trail breaking. Job One on these heavy storm nights is to keep passable routes open to the tops of every peak. Snowmobile access is critical to opening the lifts. Our lift mechanics inspect and fire up the lifts just before 0600. The first people to ride the lifts every storm day are our ski patrollers who do the Avalanche Control.

Visibility was pretty good. The much ballyhooed "Super Moon" was lighting up our world to fine effect. We spent a couple of hours packing out the mountaintop routes before we began grooming the basics. It was really snowing hard.

We endured the usual issues...lousy 2-way performance, lagging defrosters, and windshield wiper woes. We employed the usual work-arounds and soldiered on. We had the situation well in hand...

Around 0400, it was time to hit the mountaintop routes again. We packed-up and began heading up. Before we were even hitting the first steep, Eskimo radioed that his cat was running hot and he had a "burning smell". We relayed his dilemma to the Graveyard Wrench, and Jeweler escorted him to the base area where Eskimo could find his way to the shop despite his weak defroster.

I continued up. Halfway up this route is a huge, steepening meadow devoid of landmarks. In round numbers, it's a square, a quarter of a mile on a side. When the seeing is good, crossing the meadow is a piece of cake. When the seeing is lousy, I rely on my experience. The only real landmarks define the outsides of the square. Making things even more interesting is there are only two or three passes that are climbable when the going gets deep, and you must land precisely on these spots at the correct angle to climb to the beginning of the traverse cat track that leads to the top.

I couldn't see shit. It was a total whiteout. The winds weren't that bad, it was just snowing so hard that the far flung landmarks were totally obscured. The 2-way crackled as my phone rang. The Boss was on the phone. He was on his way, but had to stop to change a flat tire. "How's things going Dave?" "Well, it was going great, but now we're getting spanked" I told him..."See you when you get here".

The radio was Eskimo saying: "I'm headed back out, we couldn't find any problem" "10-4" I replied, telling him where to meet Jeweler. Five minutes later Eskimo was back on the air...he was limping back to the shop with his overheating cat. "Fire up one of the winchcats, Eskimo"...We were down to just the two of us...Mother Nature was kicking it up another notch or two...

After a long fifteen minutes of helplessly talking on the phone and radio in total darkness to let my night vision come in, I finally hit the sweet spot, and made the climb to the top. The snow was really piling up fast now.

The Boss made it out on the hill just before 0600, and the digging began in earnest. Operations made the call to abandon opening two of three mountaintop lifts and we got two lifts open at 9AM, a third at 9:10, and the last one, the one with Big Blind Meadow at 9:25

Eskimo called it a day, Jeweler, the Park Guy, and the Boss pounded trails and roads on the closed peaks, and I did the digging back at the shop. I made my online report minutes before the Noon Deadline. I punched out and walked down to the parking lot...there was more than two feet in the lot! The parts runner and Jeweler's ride and Park Guy's Subaru were all buried...nobody else had made it into the lot.

I called Jeweler on the phone. I asked him to bring his cat down the shop road to dig us out. Jeweler had us dug out in three minutes. I pulled the parts runner onto Jeweler's pass and cleared the snow off the rig. The Interstate was close due to an avalanche on the westbound side, according to Rumor Control. It was Friday night for me, and I was going to spend it in the DaveCave, come Hell or high water!

The Highway was empty, but the going was good. I made it home without drama. A Pastrami/Cream Cheese Omelet was breakfast, and I turned in after 2PM.

I woke up at 0130, fully rested...encore indeed...

It was a good week, the avalanche closed HWY89 near Alpine Meadows for a time, no cars trapped, we did "Strong Work" all week, and I'm feeling fulfilled this morning. Relaxed and satisfied...no better way to begin Springtime!

The Vision Thing Again

The "Salvation Storm" arrived right at midnight Saturday morning. After a month of dry weather and firm packed conditions, it was like Christmas Morning! It did not disappoint! An honest inch an hour until 6AM...I know I watched it pile up around the 24 Hour Snow Stake.

I swung by the stake for my first look at 0200...2 inches. Back at 0400, I checked to see 4 inches and phoned the Ski Patrol Boss with the news. This is when he makes the Go-No Go decision on avalanche control for the day. Six inches or more is an automatic Go. When there's 4 inches and it's still pounding with big winds up top, it's a discretionary Go.

There were times when there was total white-out conditions down lower too. With the crescent moon not rising until after 4AM seeing was problematic. I spread the crew out so each groomer would have total control of his lighting. I put "The Pack" together an hour before first light, so we could really kick it down the "home stretch".

Jeweler caught the pack in action w/ his iPhone

Everyone flat out enjoyed themselves...our first honest 10 hour shift in a month. It was better than Christmas...smiles all over the hill. Even though I deployed sunglasses at 0900, we still tallied 10 inches when all was said and done.

The Vision Thing
"Recognizing Tunnel Vision" was my take-away theme for the night. Eskimo had another over-caffeinated planning cyclone. I told him to "Free your mind" and go with the flow a little more. What we want to do and how we do it are always subject to Mother Nature's whims. Our mission is always to "do the most with the least". In this instance it means leaving the obvious re-rolls 'till last. If you only groom once before the lifts turn, you can make more acres of corduroy overall, and keep up with the digging. "I know you want to do the Bunny Hills right out of the blocks "to get it over with" but we'll just be back redoing it again in the morning...so lets go have some fun, do the secondaries, and we'll get the bunny hill, one time, just before opening."

I had my tunnel vision moment too...

My tractor is the oldest, frontline groomer in the fleet. She turned the hour meter over to 8200 hours this week. Old but unbended, she's still running like a thoroughbred. There's been one little problem that's dropped her score from 100 to 95 this season.

She's been making a tiny berm on the right hand side all season. Not awful, but not perfect. More berm going downhill than up, I've been coping by working solo and altering my circuits so I finish with an uphill pass, and coming off the hill with a Skier's Right Pass...my compensation plan was working fine until storm nights returned.

I repeatedly eyeballed the problem out on the hill and found a spacer at the top of the "Triangle Flap" or "End Flap" of the tiller to be half as tall as specified. I wrote the thing up several times, over the month, and finally took the opportunity of the big snow night to get the Graveyard Wrench to affect repairs.

I backed the BR350 into the middle bay of the vehicle shop, jumped out and kibitzed with the Wrench...In the bright lights of the shop, with the tiller up at eye level, I was showing the Wrench the Mickey Mouse Spacer problem when we saw the underlying problem.

The whole inner "side dam" assembly was MIA...Wrench surmised that it never was replaced during summer service. Wrench consulted the Parts Program...seven part numbers for the whole shebang! The side dam keeps the snow inside the tiller box, where it's metered out in a controlled manner, preventing berm formation in the first place.

The parts? Not in stock. I rolled out of the shop, refueled, and went back to my Left-Handed grooming world. I mulled over my mistake...I saw what I'd seen in the past on these tillers, and stopped searching...call it what it is wishful thinking (or seeing)...more tunnel vision.

There's a Grooming 101 lesson here...I'm not the only pilot of this snowcat...each operator's eyes have missed the missing side dam assembly on every pre-flight walk-around. The BR350's are so robust, so reliable that the natural human tendency to laziness shrinks the scope of the pre-flight check-out...shame on us all.

I understand it...I'm guilty...I wanna get out on the hill more than I want to go over the tractor with a fine toothed comb...in the dark...with a Mini Maglite. I got away with it this time. Granted, a berm isn't a blown motor or broken stinger, but one night a weak walk-around could result in big trouble.

Lesson learned.

Stuck In Time

Getting a snowcat stuck is such a rare occurrence that getting stuck this week turned on my Way Back Machine.

In three decades of grooming on My Mountain I've got stuck three times.

Technically the second time, in the late 90's I could have driven out (save for all the trees below me)...I had to get pulled back up on the cat road that I fell off of (or more precisely, the cat road that fell away under me)

The memorable stuck was during my rookie season. Back then the fleet was all Tucker SnoCats and one Thiokol 3700. The Tuckers didn't have a blade out front. Groomers towed various implements for different conditions...rollers, mogul cutters, powdermakers, even huge drag chains.

The morning in question, I was pulling a 30ft roller.

The trail I was grooming was a steep intermediate run that we usually got a little toboggan action from at the breakover a third of the way down.

Working left to right, I crept down towards the breakover...sure enough, once the Tucker's pontoons were past the breakover, she slid. I punched the throttle and away we went...this time was different than the times I done this trail before...this time the whole run crowned...wall to wall...a 3ft slab avalanche that roared down the 50 yards or so to the compression at the bottom of the steep.

My Tucker went into the compression like a lawn dart into soft turf, and the avalanche debris piled up around me. It was up to the top of the hood, and up to the windows in the doors...I couldn't even get out to shovel myself free. My only tool available was the Motorola 2-Way Radio.

I called the boss who was digging out the top of the mountain. He advised that I'd better start shoveling...I explained that I couldn't get out of my cab to shovel...he replied: "I've gotta see this!"

The boss in his 3700 roared up about 20 minutes later...clearly amused at my predicament. He made quick work of removing the snow around my cab and that 30ft roller. As he roared off to return to his digging he keyed the mic: "Now you can shovel your way out!"

Maybe twenty minutes with my shovel, and I was free.

That was the only time I slid a whole run at once. Back then I didn't know what I didn't know. I chalked up the thrill as just another bit of  Groomer Esprit de Corps. Today I'd be scared shitless if I crowned a whole run!

Thirty years ago we had lots of thrills on the hill, but today we could never leave the ski surface the way we did back then. For the most part, we've evolved the adrenaline out of the job. That trail is only groomed by winch cats today...I can count on one hand the number of times we've groomed that run with a free cat since the turn of the century.

Having been in the trade all the way through this evolutionary epoch, I've evolved to enjoy the cerebral thrills in lieu of the raw adrenaline rush. Do I miss it? Sure...fun is fun...but the satisfaction I feel knowing how perfectly we groom the slopes in the modern era is deeper than I'd ever imagined back in those "Wild West" days.

Merry Christmas!

Around The World in 70 Centimeters

I spent a lazy evening after a hard day of fishing on San Francisco Bay. SturgeUrge and I returned to the Richmond Marina where we'd encountered the Finn Gold Club last week. Saturday was our last shot for the season to catch a King Salmon, and the forecast and the tides were in our favor.

I checked the local buoys online at 0700 and the data said Normal...the forecast, Normal. We're all systems GO.

I unpacked my digital camera from my tackle bag and the waterproof Pelican Case so I could capture a picture of the top of the boat ramp follies with a minimum of muss and fuss. Saturday was the final day of racing the Finn Class sailboats. The World Champion would be decided on San Francisco Bay Saturday afternoon.

To my dual delight and disappointment, there was no forest of Finn Dollies cluttering the ramp (and making a great photo op) We launched the boat, deployed the coffee and cheese danish, and motored out onto the Bay.

It was a glorious day on San Francisco Bay even though the Salmon didn't come out to play...or the Halibut. Still the wind was moderate, the tides favorable, and the overcast burned off around noon, revealing a glorious day. We couldn't see the Finns contesting the Gold Cup, but we were treated to a picturesque Club Race featuring forty or more 20-something foot long sloops sailing downwind with their colorful spinnakers full.

When we returned to the Marina, there was little sign of the Finns themselves. The Gold Cup World Champion had been decided about two hours before we returned to the ramp to recover the boat.

There was a new class of clutter jamming up the works now...all the Regatta Support Boats were pulling out of the water after spending the week afloat. Judges' and Referees' Boats, Tenders, all manor of Zodaics, Boston Whalers, RIB Inflatables, Antique Yachts and Yacht Club Flagships were tied up at the ramp's docks, sitting on trailers all over the tiny bit of unused parking at the top of the ramp, getting washed down, power washed, and secured for towing...all by men seemingly oblivious to everyone else around them.

SturgeUrge backed the tow rig down "our lane" of the ramp, and I floated the boat onto the trailer. As we were pulling the boat up the ramp on our way to the Washdown Station, Urge said: "Watch me run over a $1000 Finn Mast"..."Umm, I replied, that's probably a bag with five $1000 masts in it!"

The Mast Bag was laying across the lane between the ramp and the Washdown Station...the "Main Drag"! As we drove by the bag, the fellow washing his boat (not at the Washdown Station) kinda glared at us for driving so close to "his" mast bag...

We made quick work of unloading the boat, washing the rods and reels, the boat and the trailer, as we chatted up the guy doing the same in the other washdown lane. We flushed the outboard while we ran the carburetors out of fuel mix. When we were done, I strode back towards the ramp to change into my shorts in one of the dozen or so PortaPotties set up for the event. That's when I watched GlaringBoatWashing Guy pull away and out of the Marina...the Mast Bag was still laying there, obviously not his! Still begging to be run over...right in the middle of the whole show...

Once we got the boat parked in it's spot at the SturgeUrge Compound, we unloaded the tow rig and KirkVallus sauntered in, back from a reunion get together downtown. We had a Dark&Stormy Cocktail on the deck, and caught up for a half an hour.

Back at the Ancestral Digs, my Sister K was in town and was holding dinner until I arrived. We enjoyed gnocchi and converstion, and we all turned in early.

Sunday morning I woke up and brewed a pot of French Roast, and realized I hadn't blogged for Sunday publication. I looked around the internet for some "Wrap Up The Week" items.

I'd been wondering since I heard a radio news tease about the 7.1 Earthquake in New Zealand...did the quake cause any avalanches on New Zealand's Ski Slopes? New Zeasland Ski Reasorts have been on my radar since their season started this summer and I saw a news story of a lift tower failing under huge deposits of rime ice. I wrote about the event here.

So I looked at PlanetSki online (we PlanetWhatevers stick together) and yes...12 avalanches, no reported damage, and no injuries...the temblor occurred when most Kiwis were still in bed.

While reading the NZ Avalanche story, I saw another story citing  70cm of snowfall in the Alps. My handy online Unit Converter says: 70 centimeter = 27.559055118 inches, so for my American Readers...27 1/2 inches of snow fell in the Alps...more "Early Snow"

I'm seeing lots of "Early Snow" stories this summer...that's right, it's still summertime.

On the Atlantic Hurricane Front, there's a lot of Post-Earl hub-bub over the lack of "performance" by Hurricane Earl. Resort operators across the Eastern Seaboard's Hurricane Earl Watch & Warning Areas are pretty upset with the National Hurricane Center's forecasts, and they're plenty angry with the 24/7 Cable News Channels for hyping the hurricane to the degree that the Holiday Weekend Travel Bonanza was denied the tourism sector who, at worst suffered a few hours of heavy rain while their customers were scared off by the media's over the top hurricane hype.

Ongoing hurricane coverage is the ratings motherlode for the Cable News outfits during the otherwise slow Dog Days...hurricanes mean lot's of viewers checking in over and over again...with the Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the All-Time Summer CableNews Blockbuster at hand, there were plenty of high hopes for a repeat performance of the off that charts ratings bonanza.

I can feel their pain, High Sierra Ski Resorts often suffer at the hands of overzealous weather and news outlets over-hyping the weekend forecast. At My Mountain we stand to lose a quarter million dollars a day when Holiday Crowds avoid the mountains at the behest of an overheated forecast teased all week long heading into a holiday weekend. When the "difficult mountain travel for the Holiday" doesn't materialize, it costs us...big time. All things being equal, Ski Resorts tally all their profits on Holiday Weekends, and the Christmas Holidays...period, bottom line. To paraphrase the late Senator from Illinois, Everett Dirkson...a quarter million here, a quarter million there...pretty soon you're talking Real Money!

Snowcats: It's What's On TV

I stayed up way too late Saturday night...so late that I almost stayed awake to watch the Belgian Grand Prix live at 0430! I did make it through the Pre-Race, but finally closed my eyes just before the green flag. I captured the race on my DVR, but watched the delayed replay at 0930 in HDTV. A great race from the historic Spa/Francorchamps circuit in Belgium's Ardennes Forest. It's Formula One's fastest track and the longest at over four miles. Oh, it was raining on and off at different parts of the track...pretty darn exciting on slick tires!

Once recorded, I edit the race video on the DVR, removing the commercials, and burn the race to DVD to send to a friend. I also capture a library of interesting TV Shows to watch later. These are mostly History Channel Shows, with a dose of PBS "GeeWhiz Shows" on history, science, travel and cuisine, thrown in for good measure.

While editing away Sunday night, I noticed that the SPEED channel was showing a program featuring a Snowcat!

The show is called Intersections. Sunday's episode told the story of two Search and Rescue Teams. A Coast Guard team on Long Island, NY with their big helicopter and rescue swimmers, and the Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue Team with their LMC 1500 snowcat.

SPEED TV's Intersections episode "Extreme Rescues" gave the thumbnail story of each outfit and their operations. In a half an hour, they didn't get into the real minutia of the respective machinery, but I always get a charge when I see snowcats on the tube! It looked like most of the Tahoe Nordic footage was made in springtime...they were running around on some pretty springlike snow, though they did catch some snowfall at night footage too.

SPEED airs their original shows several times, and "Extreme Rescues" airs Wednesday 9/1 at 7:30PM PDT and 10:30PM PDT

I'll never forget the first time I saw groomers on TV. I'd just woke up to get ready to go to work at my mountain. The television was tuned into KCRA3's 11 O'clock News coverage of the 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche. The footage showed LMC 3700s pushing avalanche debris away from structures behind an interview with an Alpine Spokesman...someone I knew. The slide happened that morning, but these images were the first time I'd heard about it. I went from sleepily awakening, to sitting bolt-upright, to intensely engaged in a nanosecond.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Grooming 101.4

Where Have All the Heroes Gone?
Alas, Hero Snow isn't around every night...What goes wrong when all the Heroes turn into Zeros?

The list of things that can turn an otherwise good productive night into Groomer's Hell is long and infamous. Simple or stupid, events sometimes best even the most experienced, working from the best List, in the best equipment, with the best of intentions, and the best record of rolling with the punches. Shit Happens...

It always seems to happen when it's pounding snow...don't ask me why. I starts innocently enough...say one guy oversleeps, or another gets his truck stuck on his way to work. The wind is howling, and the snow is piling up into big drifts...visibility is "less than ideal"...un-noticed, the disintegration has already begun. Welcome to my Snow Day Hell...

The Shift Foreman makes the call...fall back and regroup. Reprioritize, shift gears, try Plan B...

The Back-Up Plan shreds the Work Orders. New goals, though scaled back in acreage, take on new, and deadly important weight. Remember what we sell: A safe ride up a safe, groomed mountain. Heavy winds and high rates of snowfall are Mother Nature's recipe for Avalanches.

The Back-Up Plan grooms all the Peaks, the easiest way down from each lift, all ramps and maze areas, and all the "flats" around the Lodges and the Base Area where pedestrians will be walking to work, the Lodges, and all the shops. Roads to the tops of all six peaks need to be snowmobile friendly at 6AM, and roads to weather stations, snow study plots, and explosives magazines need to be maintained for use by the Opening Crews. The Back-Up Plan avoids all potential Avalanche Hazard Zones.

On good "Bad Days", going to the Back-Up Plan usually rights the ship, and the best is made from the burgeoning mess. Expectations are lowered to RealWorld levels, and the Shift Foreman and his Crew turn back into Rock Stars...on top of their game. Prepared, and battle hardened, they've made a Silk Purse from the Sow's Ear yet again. These nights feel good, relief feels good, dodging a bullet and getting away with it feels great. We don't get to feel these feeling every time things take a turn for the worse. Sometimes, Shit Keeps Happening...

Sometimes, right after calling the Back-Up Plan, the Foreman is starting to feel smug when the 2-Way crackles with Bad News..."Hey Boss? I just lost all drive" Uh-oh...there goes an hour of working time for Two machines.

On nights when it's really pounding, the Graveyard Mechanic usually has his hand full before any Grooming Machine shis attention. On Storm Nights, the Grooming Cats work their hardest....at the same time, the Snow removal Crew is working their fleet to the Red Line also.

On these nights, the Mechanic already has his hands full keeping the Snow Removal Equipment online...Groomers gotta wait their turn. When things are going according to plan, there's a back-up grooming machine parked down at the Shop, ready to rumble. Another crewman fetches the operator from the stricken machine, and ferries him back to the shop so the back-up groomer can be pressed into service. Most times an hour of both operators' night are consumed by this snowcat shuffle.

Provided that this drama is played out at least an hour before dawn, a total save is still possible...but it just isn't guaranteed...as often as not, another snowcat will join the injured reserve list. All it takes is the addition of a random broken winch cable or burst hydraulic hose to seal the Doom.

What's the one Single Point Failure most likely to down a Modern Grooming Machine? Windshield Wiper Failure! You can't groom if you can't see...but you can persevere. A confident operator can run with "under-performing" wipers with impunity...until the sun rises. Once there's light in the sky, wipers are a must. In the dark, operators are "Masters of their Domain" to borrow the concept from the Seinfeld Show. In the dark, groomers have total control of the lighting of their workplace...often running without forward lights makes for better seeing...it's counter-intuitive, but it works, and it's a core lesson in the Grooming 101 Syllabus. Once the sun rises, all bets are off, and groomers rejoin the mere mortals eyesight-wise.

With the huge front windshields of today's Groomers, wiper failure is far too common. Massive heated windshields, coupled with heated wiper blades almost three feet long, conspire to overheat wiper motors or tweak linkages all too often. This failure can be absorbed for most of the shift, but the Piper must be paid at Dawn...right when the cost of losing a machine is the highest. When the snow is flying, and the sun is rising, even with clean windows, it's near impossible to resolve the difference between snow and sky...throw in a little wind, and it's Helen Keller City.

When these nights end (always badly) there no whoopin' or hollerin' back at the pump...just moanin' and groanin' ...it's not a pretty sight, and it feels just plain lousy. These are the nights that try men's souls...no luck, no glory, no gold stars.

Nothing is worse than when a Hero takes a Fall...wounded is the worst way to end a shift.

Poaching

Wilting
I'm getting tired of this heat. The promised cool-down didn't come...as a matter of fact, the Inland Valley is hotter than yesterday...again. How do the TV weather-folks keep muffing their 8-hour forecasts? According to my calendar, it's "Summer in the City" with the same ol'-same ol' forecast on an endless tape loop that's supposed to play from June 'till October. I couldn't write yesterday...I attributed that to the heat, and tried to recover at the end of my truncated scrawl with a quip: Poached.

Like any interesting word, "poached" has many uses and meanings. In the kitchen one can poach eggs-bam! Simple on buttered toast...or fancy, say Eggs Florentine or Eggs Benedict.

There's Poached Salmon...a personal favorite when I catch Wild Chinook Salmon, and it's snowing too hard to do the BBQ thing out on the porch. Halibut is good poached too, though I like it grilled mostly...sauteed, breaded and fried, even Picatta style with lemon juice and capers are all good.

I found a recipe once for "Poor Man's Lobster" That's halibut poached in 7-Up. I had lots of halibut in my freezer at the time, so I took the plunge. It tasted somewhat like lobster, but I deemed it a waste of perfectly good halibut flesh.

Halibut done simply, is as good as it gets. Most people overcook fish, not TruckeeDave. I've made many hundreds of pounds of sushi in my kitchens over the years...my personal home kitchens. I've never cooked for pay...I worked for a week or two in a restaurant doing clean-up overnight, before I wised up and became an apprentice carpenter. In the ensuing years, I did make the time to learn how to cook fish properly, though. Take the fish off the grill or out of the pan just before it's done...it will finish cooking on the plate.

Poaching
Here near the Coast and the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta, there's a newspaper story seemingly every week, reporting on the latest band of Sturgeon Poachers, Black Bear Poachers, Deer or Elk Poachers, and worst of all, Abalone Poachers.

It's a "Little United Nations" of poachers, apparently. Russians or Ukrainians seem to do the sturgeon crime, it's the mullet, meth, and camo set poaching the antlered game and bears from their AstroTurf equiped El Caminos, and various Asian Communities overdoing the Mollusks geometrically...usually selling to the restaurant trade.

California has tough laws on poaching to protect our fish and game resources...I guess the Judges who pass sentence on these offenders don't hunt or fish, or care to view wildlife for that matter. California doesn't have Hanging Judges anymore...I don't understand mercy when it's bestowed on those who show no mercy when they're stealing precious fish and wildlife from The People.

Poachers
Poaching on my Mountain is serious business. There are several flavors of Poachers on Ski Hills.

Snowmobiles. Two basic families here:

Other workers on the Mountain who never saw the fresh pass of corduroy that didn't need roosting with a snowmobile track. I teach the Guys to get over it, and have an annual word with Dept. heads who's employees ride sleds.

Snowmobile Enthusiasts. Local gearhead types who use our Mountain after hours to "see what she'll do" It's impossible for a snowcat with a top speed of 12 MPH to catch a +65 MPH sled...period. We hope they keep it together enough to avoid all the hard stuff...rocks, trees, lift towers, etc. I suspect that these Hot Rods all have an alcohol component...not in the tank...just sayin'...

When our lifts are turning, another poacher comes out to play. These poachers hike up the Mountain and ski the upper chairs, where they're less likely to get ticket-checked...that doesn't work anymore. Ticket checkers are worth what the resorts pay them in these days of over-$60 Lift Tickets. These guys annoy the Brass in the Base Lodge...that's bad for all concerned.

Poach 'Till You Die
This last flavor of poacher is the only one that still raises my blood pressure. Poaching a closed area. This means the poacher intentionally cuts under a closure to ski or ride in an area that's in-bounds but closed by the Ski Patrol. Patrol closes in-bounds ski runs because they can't be 100% certain that the slope in question is safe. This only happens during heavy storm periods, when avalanche loading is ongoing.

All known avalanche paths are "controlled" before our guests can ride our lifts. When the weather is coming in hard and fast, or moderately, but with high winds, Patrol will close the most problematic runs so that the lifts can still open "on time" Once all the scheduled lifts are turning, Patrollers will re-assess the closed runs..."ski cutting" them once again, to try and get any potential slides to go in a controlled manner, without endangering our guests or property.

Way back in the early 80's a couple of skiers cut a closure and triggered a slide that buried them both. I later found out that they had asked Patrol about the closed area and were told the Patrol would re-assess and get back to them. Impatience got the best of them, they poached the run, it slid, and one guy paid the ultimate price. I saw the survivor guy admit to their error in lurid detail on the 11 o'clock news, while I was getting ready to go to work that evening.I found one of the victim's skis 25ft up in a lodgepole pine the following summer.

This kind of poaching is like cooking fish in a way...but the poacher gives up the autonomy to "take the fish off the heat just before it's done" Nature decides when things are done. Poachers, you've been warned.