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Skied Rubicon Peak on Thursday. Parked at the high trailhead with no ticket. Maybe because you can truly park outside of the snowstakes due to low snow. These west shore tree runs below Rubicon Peak are among the best anywhere in Lake Tahoe. Snow was a way too heavy unfortunately from warm temps. Frustrating, since there were hardly any tracks. Bring wax for your skis and your skins if you go ski touring this week.

Finding the summit is easy. Go up. Finding your car is next to impossible if you haven't skied here a lot. I still get lost. Now it's tougher, because people go to the summit from all different places (afraid of getting a ticket high in the neighborhood). We followed tracks and got distracted on the way down, and ended up back at the highway. I walked 35 minute walk back up to the car. Your best strategy is to find the skin track by mid mountain on the descent.






My favorite part of skiing Rubicon is scrambling up to to the little knife edge rocky summit. 3rd class at the easiest.




Skiing right here? Not so good.

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

some christmas day pics of rubicon. Coverage on the west shore is definately better than the Mt. Rose Area.

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

Looks good- thanks for the inspiration. Looks like you were able to ski all the way down...? Any word on coverage in the Carson Pass area compared to West Shore? See you out there- Qb

Still nice dry winter powder on upper Rubicon Peak. Great coverage. We parked at the dead end, as did 3 other cars by the time we got back. No BS parking tickets as of 12 noon.


trees are still holdin snow, which means there's still good powder skiing conditions.


Logan climbed up the north side of the rock summit. Fully rimed and sketchy. I went up the north west side. I haven't scouted around too hard, but this seems to be the easiest. It's not easy, and with ice on the rock it required some delicate moves in ski boots. It's really exiting to go up there on top, and you can just barely fit 2-3 people.


Yes, Logan went up without gloves. Damn! We downclimbed my route and I threw up my gloves to him.




Desolation looks well covered. Dick's Peak on the left.

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

Did Rubicon on 1/2/09 in perfect winter conditions. When we left the car, it was snowing gently. About halfway up, the wind kicked up and it started nuking. It was nearly whiteout conditions by the time we reached the peak, which prevented us from attempting a climb at the top. On the descent, we had about knee deep pow on the tree run. No parking tickets at the bottom.

http://picasaweb.google.com/marcrlewis/ ... directlink

12/26/09 Thursday
Good boot top deep powder on rubicon on north and east. Should get real deep however after this huge storm coming.

This was an odd sight. We backtracked a little to see if someone needed help when this chopper landed. Some guy from Snowtel was doing snow survey work. This was 20 minutes from the car by skis, but hey; I guess they need the chopper to get in there? Didn't land inside Deso boundary. God forbid the guy skis 45 minutes to get to this spot. But If I had a heli and knew how to fly it, I might not be a skier either!


Beautiful day. Noaa was calling for huge wind, but there was none.


Looking across Rubicon Lake to Phipps Peak






Dick's looking well covered. Gonna be ALL white next week.

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

full string of pics here:
http://www.thebackcountry.net/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1595

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

some rubicon pics from Tuesday 12-7-10. A bit wind affected everywhere, but who cares. Best summit in tahoe to sit on hands down. (3rd class fyi)

_________________
Mike Schwartz
www.thebackcountry.net
mike@thebackcountry.net

Got to west shore early Sunday. Broke trail and did a few laps. Only thing that sucked is it was really windy and my skin track kept getting filled in every lap. Luckily I could use the force and remember where I put it in so I didn't sink much. Never saw another soul the whole day.
The video will attest to the snow quality :D







Wind was howlin'!


This was second lap. By the last lap I could barely find it:


http://vimeo.com/18201193

Back to the office:





http://vimeo.com/18229542

Mike, you need to allow video imbeds!