Today I was awoke by the sound of the phone ringing. I had called a few people the night before trying to hook something up so I knew this was my chance. It was Charlie....I thought it was going to be Rob trying to find a partner for his great ski hunt (lost the day before on the Lake Run). He wanted to go back out to the Cat Skiing zone/Diamond Ridge (where they had been the day before while we were tagging Andersen Ridge). I said "yes" immediately and he came and picked me up. Tommy called while Charlie was on his way and joined the team. We headed out Andersen Ridge which was very firm and shaped by the wind. We scoped a number of lines as we skinned past General Principle and up over the next point on the ridge. From there we got great views of Andersen Peak and the tracks down it looked very nice. I have to get out to the Sierra Club hut at the base of the peak. There is some PRIME terrain right out the back door!! We dropped the first line of the day which was short but had great POW!! I made some deep turns then rode a spine and had a sweet air off a diving board (~12') into some more milky turns. Tommy did some slalom turns through the rocks and Charlie rode a steep spine to a sweet air off a snow pyramid. We skinned right back up their skin track from the day before which was steep and below some convex rollovers. Tommy almost hit me with a huge "cinnamon bun" that developed from some snow he kicked off inadvertently (the snow was already getting sticky). We kept skinning out the ridge to the furthest hight point just below Andersen Peak and dropped a few different lines again. I had another great run with some nice turns and a good sized air off the left of the main cliff band. I stopped 3/4 of the way down and got pics of Tommy slashing the wall and a GREAT pic of him doing a grab off a rock drop. We rode as far as we could and then skinned the rest of the way to the top of Diamond Ridge. We got into radio contact w/ Brian Bozak, the 2 Noah's, and Emily who were doing some snowmobile recon in the area. We dropped in on some amazing terrain which unfortunately was a little past its prime. We set off lots of wet slides and sent roller balls flying all over the slope. It was fun but kind of sloppy/sketchy too. We skinned out past a few ponds, some small lakes, and right along a creek for a bit (no fall zone!!). The sleds caught up with us and Tommy got pulled out by Bozak. Charlie and I decided to skate out (since he made it seem like we were close to it all being downhill). Well, it was far from being over. It took a solid 30+ min of skating, mostly with only one skin on my L ski so I could kick off w/ the L and glide on the R ski. We were pretty worked over by the time Tommy showed back up w/ his truck (and some beers). We cruised back up to Sugarbowl to retrieve our other vehicles and share some laughs over a nice cold beer. Life is grand!! One of these days I'm going to take a rest day........ but maybe not tomorrow. Tommy wants to go to Auburn and ride some XC. Daron just pimped out my bike w/ some new bars, stem, front deraileur, and all new cables/housing w/ my used/new XT shifters. The snow is pretty heavy and there's only sun on the forecast. I guess spring is here.......
Pic descriptions: 1. Tommy charging Diamond Ridge (notice the manky snow) 2-3. Tommy airing it out!! 4. Charlie airing out the pyramid 5. Tommy doing his slalom turns
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