Powder Turns – Northstar, CA

There are good days and then there are great days. The past two days in Tahoe have been great days, the snow finally arrived and delivered amazing powder runs. I couldn’t believe how quickly the conditions changed on the mountain and just in time for my last day in Tahoe. After dropping off my rental car in South Lake, we headed up to Northstar for the day.

Yesterday was about powder on the groomers and today was about powder in the trees. There were risks underneath the snow with trees, branches, rocks…but the reward was worth it and picking your line while watching the snow for bumps was everything. Most of these pics were taken after 11am on the mountain, definitely a lot of snow for everyone to enjoy all day long.

Today’s conditions were epic. The snow was light and fluffy, the coverage was getting filled in and the backside of the mountain was ideal. I had only ridden these runs earlier this season on the groomers and now could get a good feel for the wide open to tree runs that they offered up.

It’s hard to capture the happiness that comes with riding powder but today I came close with this shot of Ashley. It’s total happiness and stoke while enjoying the ride.

We made sure to get our fair share of powder riding in but also Ashley was amazing at making sure to get shots of myself today while riding. We each took runs, jumps off the cat tracks and ripping up the powder while the other tried to capture some of it.

For most of the day, we explored. Dropping into trees, scouting from the Backside Express lift and figuring it out as we went. If a tree run had too many buried trees, we’d find another without them. Of course we then found a run that was ours for most of the day that we ended up hot lapping over and over.

Probably the most fun of the day was jumping cat tracks into powder. We each took turns, scouting the landings and telling each other where to jump. Of course we were just playing around, nothing big but just good times.

Of course anytime you jump, you have to land and I had a good crash today. I was completely buried when Ashley rode down to me. But I was laughing hard about it.

As 2pm rolled around and our run was getting more tracked, we headed back to the frontside of Northstar to get in some park laps. Props to Northstar Terrain Park Crew, today was a powder day and you couldn’t tell in the parks. They were groomed and ready to hit.

It was a really great way to end my Tahoe trip and so happy I was able to make a return trip. I got really lucky with the snow arriving for two days of epic powder turns. I really appreciate my friends Ashley and Lauren for being part of this experience. Now it’s time to head back to Washington for more powder and to take my level I avy course this weekend at Mt Baker.