Mt Tallac and Zakir Hussein!!

This past week was a mixed bag of fun.......rode at Peavine w/ Nate, Natalie, Daron, and Lily.  Nate forgot Natalie's shoes and drove an extra hour plus!!  DOH!!  The trails are fun but definitely a barren desert environment!!  We climbed "Bacon Strip" and descended the backside.  One problem..... torrential winds!!  It blew soooo hard that it would push you around at the worst times (charging a rock garden or catching some mini air).  On the brief road ride back it had to have been 50+ MPH winds (steady).  There was tumble weeds flying down the highway, and cinders pelted us non-stop.  Then there was the challenge of force production.......  We got a little surprise in the way of a mostly powder day (~4" of dust on crust).  We were planning on hiking the whole day but ended up charging a bunch of runs on the 58's (1000' fall line runs).  It got better as the day went on which is always cool.  The next day (Fri the 10th?) we decided on Mt Tallac since neither Lily nor I had done it, and it was likely to have pow after another 3-5" overnight.  We got up at 5:45 and were on the road at 7 (w/ a 5-10 min start the van side note....@%!*&!!).  We had an unexpected guest in the way of our newby-ish buddy Nate Dawg.  He's climbed Mt Rose twice.......  I guess Tallac is only 3x as big w/ more commitment?!!  We started out by hiking Rt 89 North to a gated road that led back into some cabins and dead-ended into the woods.  The visibility was low and you couldn't even see the top of the climb!!  I tossed on my ski crampons early and was glad.  We climbed the ridge with a few high-exposure firm snow kick turns that I was glad to have some crampons digging in on.  The climb took 2.5 hrs (full on grunting).  We got passed by Glen Paulson (40-50 something bad ass) and his partner, and passed a splitboarder w/o poles (?!!) who was getting worked hard, and a group of 3 on the last snowfield (2 guys easily in their late 50's and a woman in her early 40's who had set the skin track the whole way!!).  Funny enough....Daron had rented them all their gear the day before!!  We waited a little while for Nate to catch up then wrapped around the back side and clambered over some rocks to the summit.  Daron poked around above the Cross where Glen had gone and declared that Lily and I should ride it.  He bit the bullet and rode the mellower line w/ Dawg.  He gave us the directions......  Drop into this first pitch but don't break off any cornice and make your turns cautiously.  Then you'll see a clump of trees in the middle of the chute.  Stay above it and go R.  That will drop you into the main chute followed by a large apron.  At that point start cutting down and L, cross over two ridges and then finish the descent as per the way we started.  The initial roll in was the crux and I unknowingly sent Lily in first.  She butt checked once and was visibly scared as she cautiously disappeared out of sight.  I got a few good pics and spotted her cut R above the trees.  I dropped in, made a jump turn that got me sliding DH faster than I imagined and accidentally broke off a 6-8" wind slab.  I darted L fast while yelling "slide!!!"  Lily was just out of the way as the wet slide ripped past her into the next chute.  "Do you think this is a good idea?!!"  The quote of the day by Lily.  Not ready to climb back up a 50+ deg chute I rolled into the next chute.  It was magic.  Untouched.  I ripped it without regard of the dangers we had faced on the first crux.  The turns were effortless and silent.  I stopped and got pics of Lily riding it.  We then proceeded to milk the apron (and catch a little air) before traversing L.  We encountered some burnt off bushes and velcro snow near the bottom.  We were down and done before we knew it.  Whew!!  And to think that we got a weather window when it appeared the whole run would be under cloud cover.  We beat Nate and Daron down, loaded up the van and drove Hwy 50 past Lover's Leap and a bunch of other amazing mountains/towns (Strawberry, etc).  Going to see Zakir Hussein at the Rio in Santa Cruz!!  We showed up at 6:30, realized we were locked out of Lily's mom's house (guess no shower), changed in the backyard and proceeded downtown.  There was a large line up already!!  I stood in line at this "fast" noodle place which was at a standstill and Lily got in and reserved a couple seats.  The show was an amazing collection of classical Indian music with a traditional hammer dulcimer like instrument with a TON of strings and of course the Tablas Zakir played.  The sellout crowd was in awe the whole time as were we.  They got standing O's every time there was a break after a crescendo.  They played 4 compositions with a good amount of improv (which you couldn't tell).  Soooooo tight!!  A true world music experience.  I didn't want it to end!!  They both made enough tones/sounds to feel like there were 10 people playing at once.  Hands of Fury!!  We walked out stunned.