Spring snow

Kate and Banjo and I got up to the mountains this past weekend for one last bit of winter before all the snow melts, which it's pretty well on its way to doing up there. We were lucky to get to stay for free with some friends at a condo in Incline Village, on the North Shore, Nevada side. Others went snowboarding in the slush, but we opted for another snowshoe hike. The first place we attempted was low - maybe 6,000"- and was totally dry, so we opted to head up the Mt. Rose highway that connects Tahoe and Reno and crests at around 8,000" in an attempt to find some snow so we could justify at least a small portion of the winter sports equipment that we had toted up with us. Although the Mt. Rose ski area looked pretty bare, the backcountry on the west side of the highway, at least the north-facing slopes and ridges, had a good amount of nice snow left, making for a nice 5-mile-ish tromp with our pup.

I think we ventured off-trail pretty quickly, but we ended up going to Mt. Tamarack and back, in the middle of a popular backcountry skiing area when conditions are better. Banjo, as always, was excited to be off-leash and romping around with all sorts of new smells to sniff. We had great views of the Lake to the south, and of Mt. Rose to the north (maybe that will be the destiniation of another day...).

On the way back we got some good glissading in on a decently steep slope- steep enough to give Banjo pause before he cautiously walk/slid his way down after us. As you can see, my second - and more ambitous - attempt had a little unintended excitement midway through, but ended nicely.














Our trip finished with a nice hearty Easter breakfast at the Wildflower diner in Incline, and then we got to listen to the A's take down the Halos on our drive back. Hope everyone else out there had a nice Easter weekend.