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IKON trip complete – Snowboarding in 4 states in 1 week. Here is what we experienced….

Snowboard blog Tahoe

Follow the storm they said. It would be fun they said…they were right!

We just returned to California from our IKON pass ski trip to Colorado and Utah. It was as Californians used to say “Hella Fun”. Waking up the day of your flight to Colorado and looking out the window and seeing some snow at lake level is a conundrum in the making. Bags weren’t packed, gloves still not dry, Squaw was reporting several inches and still coming down. FOMO sets in and I throw the board in the truck and head to squaw. With the watery rain/snow mix and whatever the plows did (or didn’t do) sent my truck sideways going up squaw valley road. My old pizza delivery driver experience skills kicked in and I corrected my trajectory with style and made a run on Red Dog before heading over to the empty lift line at KT. Upper mountain was closed at the time again, so KT was the highest I could get. I hit up my usual spots until I was drenched in water and out of time. After hours of finagling with luggage, trying to cram everything for a week into a small board bag, I gave up and ended up purchasing an extra bag to fly with. No big deal, because we are driving back to Tahoe after the trip.

…check bag…check back for more of the story!

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Snow in Tahoe California has been incredible this year.

Ever heard the term Sierra cement? Well, we haven’t seen much of that this February. It’s been cold, very cold, especially for this area. Combine this cold with deep snow, several storm cycles, atmospheric rivers and minimal melt has broken nearly a decade of drought like conditions and reignited the adrenaline enthusiasts fire – and the videographers too! 

Check out this early February day at Alpine Meadows and check back for more footage as we edit it!

coming into the cold……..

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Drifting event at Hot August Nights

Made some adjustments to the old car and took it down to test it out at AutoCross. In 100 degree heat and after a few hours and over 25 runs, my ignition coil went out and the car sputtered to a stop just outside the exit of the run. I hoped letting the car cool down would help and so decided to jump into a few drift cars and go for some rides. It was incredible and inspired this video from that day….

Take a look and see more videos on the YouTube channel—> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUS-Up72Py1nZdz2eVKpWQA?view_as=public

The part you don’t see is the two times the car broke down on interstate during rush house at the spaghetti bowl on the way home, during the week of Hot August Nights, with the whole valley layered in brown smoke from the nearby fire or ten. I didn’t know exactly what the problem with the car was at this point. I called a tow on the side of the interstate and just before dispatch, I put the phone on speaker and tried the engine again – bingo, it started. I just want to make it up the next exit, which required 3 stoplights before getting to a residential area. I went for it. After sweating it out at the 3rd stoplight, all of which I hit, I made it to near a sports bar and the car started sputtering and lurching. I knew I only had moments and was eyeballing any shade to break down in and made it to a suburb and called for the tow.  The tow truck guy was a pro. He had towed a classic car earlier that day for an older guy and had about 20 stories for me on our 45 minute ride up the mountain pass. He was an ex-semi-pro athlete who was used to keeping up being in-shape. This made most of his other stories about his life in the singles scene in the city, which was interesting. After some issues with getting the tow truck stuck, he was able to ‘walk’ it back down and put the rear tires back on pavement and then go and drop the car down on the street.

The tow truck rear end tires are off the ground and so is the car!

 

This coil looks hardly used. I noticed it missing a few weeks earlier. The heat really seemed to affect it. I dropped a new one in for about $35 in 5 minutes and am back on the road!