A Tale of Two Tours

What brought me to the Tahoe region this weekend was partly the general malaise I was feeling in Bend. It had begun to snow in earnest late Wednesday. This was real snow, the dry-ish kind, in sufficient amounts. But insufficient to spark the joy I needed from it. I needed an exit strategy, and found one in drier country. I headed south to California and spent Friday touring off the Mount Rose Highway with a fine group from Patagonia, one of The High Route’s supporters. The tour was a guided affair with a mixed group of skiers and boarders. This was also the second time I’ve skied as a “client.” A different tenor and goals than I’m used to. Over the years, I’ve bumbled here and there, learned some things, and mostly, gone at a pace that maybe prohibited lengthy conversations. Friday’s tour was at a more tempered pace. Which, it turns out, was a blessing. 

We huddled in a tight circle with the guides, introduced ourselves, and stated our personal goals for the day. Let’s call it an icebreaker. I think I mentioned something about looking forward to getting to know some new people. Skiing a distant third. Those who know me understand that I think anything supportable is good snow. And I prefer a planar surface, but will adapt as needed. Remarkably, it was both. Firm at first. Then it softened. We found fine, if not excellent, skiing and riding.

As we skinned, deskinned, and skinned again, I chatted, chatted, and chatted again with some of the other group members. There was JB, who beamed when speaking about his two boys. There were Sooyoung and Jaqusang, both from Korea, who lamented their home country’s lack of public backcountry access. But exuded gratitude for this close-at-hand planar snow under a splitting-blue sky. They happily slapped skins on their boards and meandered upward past Jeffrey and Whitebark pines. Later in the day, Forrest, an ambassador from the Democratic People’s Republic of Split, arced a turn that made me want to defect from skiing right then and there.

At one point, we had a chance to separate into two groups. For a brief moment, for some of us, ambitions of going higher tinkled in our eyes. Luckily, we stuck together. How rare, amidst strangers, none of us missed a beat. We had become, in short order, a group.

After a glide out, we crossed Mount Rose Highway and into a casual debrief. This much was clear: on this day of pretty mellow touring, the highlight was the group dynamic. Sure, the guides helped with that, freeing cranial space to connect. But there was no posturing, no performance. A genuine and collective notion that we all seized a day in the backcountry and made the most of it pervaded.

The following morning, I met my friends Spencer and Hannah on the west shore of Tahoe (although it seemed damn close to the south shore), where we skinned up a firm, but soon-to-corn east-facing slope. This was not some secret stash. While not crowded, we ran into a few other groups with the same plan. Spencer had eyed a run to the southeast, which we hopscotched down in the early afternoon and found remarkable snow amongst the rocks and runnels. When stepping across manzanita and dodging polished granite got old, which it did, we booted back up. By then, a cloudy haze had spawned, and the upper portions of our next line had firmed up, if it had ever softened.

About the same time we clicked in and began to descend, a more eager party than ours, three in total, dropped in without the cursory 3-2-1. Acoustically, their turns were what I recalled from my youth learning to ski at Pico after freezing rain: the harsh, staccato sound of a steel edge making shaved ice. The first two in the group made decent ground. The third partner was more tentative. I could see, as she flashed the pizza position on this firm, three-dimensional pitch, that she was over-terrained. A second later, she fell headfirst, slid, and lost a ski that eventually hung up close to her cartwheel

I shaved-iced over, snagged her ski and said hello. All seemed mostly fine, besides a shaken ego and nerves. The two dudes in her group waited a few hundred yards below, almost out of sight in the trees. As I skied by, I heard some comments between them about the lack of powder, or even corn. No concern I heard for their friend

Spencer, Hannah, and I regrouped and began making turns as the two dudes came into view and skied above us. There was plenty of room for them to be right above us. No problem, really. But you know, certainly not my preference and not why we booted up this morning. As we worked lower and into the panel’s near-perfect cream, we noticed the two dudes gaining ground. Which, I promise, was perfectly fine. But I did stop, and wondered for a second, then a minute, what had happened to the third partner. 

I may not know most things, but I do know this—it’s maybe ten times as hard to work up to a partner who may need help than to ski downward. Actual help. This says nothing about the comforting presence of a solid partner when making controlled turns with frayed nerves. Proximity matters. With that third partner quite un-proximate, we decided to ski to the apron of the pitch, lounge on a granite slab, relax, and keep watch.

Ten to 15 minutes transpired. A time when I began a running dialogue about what I would say to the two dudes about leaving their partner behind as she struggled above. Trying to temper my anger with words that might improve the situation. Spencer, in the meantime, needed some more exercise and began skinning up for some more turns.

Soon enough, high above we saw a small figure making long and tentative zigs and zags down the slope. Spencer was halfway back up before she passed by. Her partners did not stop to chat.