Winter storm

It was a touch choice.
It really was....
Wait for the the building winter storm to pound the coast with big swell and even bigger winds or head to the mountains for the biggest dump of the year.
Saturday morning rolled around, the alarm went off at 4:45.
It was already blowing 30+ at the coast but the mountains were forecast for 36" plus powder dump starting Saturday afternoon through Sunday night.
As we drove to Kirwood on route 88 from San Francisco , the morning sun rose behind the western slope of the Sierra Nevada's.
Behind up was a storm about to unleash.
Around noon the storm hit and the skies let loose for the next 30 hours.
Non stop puffy flakes.
The sticky icky.
Atop the peak at Cornice it was a complete white out with gust going straight up the mountain.
The only relief was in through the forest, dodging the trees through the 18" of powder that dumped the previous 2 days.
Boarding in fresh powder gives you a sense of the invisible.
When you fall you just bounce right back up.

Sunday morning I woke up to another 24" of fresh powder that had fallen over night.
We couldnt get to the mountain fast enough.
By 10:30 we were carving the steepest slope at Sierra at Tahoe in 3' of of bliss.
The trails were covered, the woods were buried in snow.
I had to dig myself out several times as I got stuck a mere 100' from the trails edge.
The effort took 15 minute of digging and walking through waist and chest deep snow to get back to solid snow.
The biggest lesson I learned was to watch the fall line ahead of me, lean back and enjoy the ride.
I spend the whole afternoon in a winter bliss enjoying the moment.