This has been a phenomenal ski season.  So good in fact that that when I encountered less than stellar conditions last Saturday I decided to call it quits early and crawl into Squaw Valley’s newest bar, the Slot.  The aptly named Slot is located past the little fenced in patio to the looker’s right of Bistro 22.   This hole in the wall location was once a tiny breakfast deli but has remained empty for most of its life in the Village at Squaw Valley.  No one seemed to know what type of business would work in such a small space.  Someone finally got it right.  The Slot has all the ingredients of a successful dive bar including intimate atmosphere, a local following and solid drink specials.

The Slot is so small that the bar takes up almost the entire joint. A huge flat panel TV located behind the bar displays the latest ski and snowboard movies.  Retired skis hang on walls to the left and right of the bar, nodding to classic ski bum culture.  A jukebox tucked in the corner buttons up the scene with quality selections from the past including Jane’s Addiction, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and Eric B and Rakim.

Slot locals hang at the bar

Slot Bartender Missy

A few bar stools sit at a counter facing the ticket portals at Squaw.  Out front is a small patio for those who actually want to see and be seen, but the Slot is not really that type of place.

The Slot is the perfect spot for local barflies to saddle up and shoot the shit.   It’s a place where you can post up for some quality day drinking without feeling guilty about it.  For a local dive bar to be successful it needs locals and the Slot sticks the landing on this one.  The Slot may be intimidating to the tourist who peeks inside, but that’s just fine with the locals who hang there.  In a Village full of bars and restaurants catering to high-end tourists, the Slot embraces its slogan: “Squaw Valley’s premier dive bar.”  Lacking any formal sign out front save a chalkboard, the Slot is a speakeasy that rewards those who sniff it out.  Hopefully the local clientele combined with an assumed low overhead will allow the Slot to succeed in the typically brutal shoulder seasons.

Let’s not forget the last critical ingredient of a quality dive bar…drink specials.  The Slot features $2 PBR’s (Pabst Blue Ribbon to the layperson) all day, everyday.   The Slot kicks off the week with Mickey’s Monday Madness where Mickey’s Widemouths are $2.  If you solve the puzzle under the Big Mouth bottle cap in less than five seconds you receive a free shot of Jager in the cap.  The Slot also has the local PBJ special where drinkers receive a PBR and a shot of Jim, Jack or Jager for $6.  What more could a local ask for?  Well you could ask for a cute, friendly and efficient bartender.  Oh yeah, the Slot has that too and her name is Missy.   She informed me the Slot is open 3pm to close (around midnight) midweek and Friday and Saturday from 1pm till 1 or 2 am depending on business.

The Slot is a long overdue and very welcome addition to Squaw Valley.  While only locals used to know about the Chamois and Loft Bar, now everyone goes there to après in the sun.  Sometimes it’s better to go somewhere that’s not on display.  The Slot is a little more discrete and off the beaten path.  It’s a place without the pretention of your typical tourist destination.  It’s a place where you can relax, have a drink, chat it up or just chill out.  Locals looking for a new bar to call their own should check out the Slot.

New book by Jennifer Woodlief documents 1982 avalanche disaster at Alpine Meadows
Review by Rob McCormick

I like it when it snows. I like it when it snows really hard for days on end. I get depressed when the sun finally comes out after a long storm cycle. If you feel the same way you will likely love reading A Wall of White. This new book documents the mother of all storm cycles that ultimately led to the deadliest avalanche ever to occur at a North American ski resort.

Nearly three decades after this historic slide, Jennifer Woodlief has written a detailed account of the event that occurred at the Alpine Meadows ski area on March 31, 1982. The book covers the history of the Alpine Meadows ski patrol and the dynamics of the slide and recovery. It also develops the cast involved with the tragedy including victims and rescuers.

In the early 1980s, snow safety at Alpine Meadows involved a scraggly bunch of ski patrollers and a variety of devices including hand charges, a 75mm recoilless rifle and a pack howitzer. Most patrollers were hard core, type t personalities that thrived on the inherent risk involved with snow safety. Most of the crew at one time or another had taken “rides” in smaller avalanches resulting from ski cutting potentially dangerous slopes to make them release. Storm days involved throwing upwards of 100 gelatin dynamite hand charges onto potential slide zones. Also used was a recoilless rifle which had a one hundred foot kill zone out the back end making it especially dangerous to operate. It was used to trigger larger unstable slopes from greater distances during brutal storm conditions. The rifle was retired in the early 90’s after it exploded and killed a forest service employee. Another device no longer in use was a military pack howitzer which rolled around on two wheels allowing for great mobility. Patrol would fire it from various locations around the parking lot. One time the howitzer was brought down to the intersection of highway 89 and River Ranch to release the unstable snow above the road. It’s operators misjudged the trajectory and fired a round over Mt. Watson and into Lake Tahoe.

A Wall of White goes to great length building characters that were affected by the avalanche. Several of the victims were ski vacationers staying at the condos near the base of the ski area. A few family members decided to walk through the blizzard to the Alpine base lodge via the parking lot at the perfectly wrong moment that the avalanche roared down from the mountain. Other casualties included Alpine Meadows employees that were stationed in the Summit Terminal Building which was obliterated by the avalanche.

Jake Smith was a very popular, free spirited ski patroller who was caught and buried by the slide while snowmobiling on the far end of the Alpine parking lot. After his death his brother spent three years lobbying to the US Board on Geographic Names to have a West Shore Lake Tahoe peak named after Jake. Many Tahoe skiers are familiar with Jake’s Peak which is a backcountry classic.

The most amazing survival story is that of Anna Conrad, who lived for five days trapped in an air pocket within the Summit Terminal Building. Her rescue was the first time a dog was used to locate an avalanche victim. Dogs are now commonplace with both Alpine and Squaw Valley ski patrols. The most tragic thing about the victims of this avalanche is that they were not typical risk takers that put themselves into dangerous situations to ski spectacular terrain. They were merely innocent bystanders that were caught extremely off guard by a massive climax avalanche that was on par with a hundred year storm type of event.

The book does a fantastic job at conveying the truly amazing amounts of snow that fell during a period of ten days. It is almost inconceivable that rescue operations had to halt for nearly four days after the avalanche because it continued to snow almost as much as it had to create the original avalanche conditions. When the storm finally subsided, a helicopter was used to drop explosives over the road below the Five Lakes area between Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows. Some of the charges release slides that left crowns over twenty feet deep.

A Wall of White is a must read for Tahoe residents since the story it tells is a major part of North Lake Tahoe history and ski history in general. It is also a great read for skiers, adventure enthusiasts and anyone else who gets excited by copious amounts of snowfall and the potential hazards it brings to a community. Despite the grim side of the story there are many accounts of tremendous will to live and to save lives in the shadow of a killer avalanche.

South Lake Tahoe’s 986 Park Hotel is offering a “Lake Tahoe Stimulus Package.”

Lake Tahoe residents can receive $10.00 every time they have someone stay at the environmentally-conscious 968 Park Hotel. Additionally, the guest who stays at the hotel receives 9.68% off their entire stay. There is no limit to how many rooms a Tahoe local can send and how much they can make. “If someone sends us 100 rooms, they will get a check for $1,000,” says Christopher Minnes, General Manager of 968 Park Hotel. To be eligible to receive the $10.00 commission, the referring individual must receive their mail inside the Tahoe Basin or Truckee.

Tahoe locals can pick up a form at 968 Park Hotel or download it from the hotel by visiting the “Lake Tahoe” Page of the website www.968ParkHotel.com. The form looks exactly like an IRS W-2 but upon closer inspection it has fields for the Tahoe residents name and the name of the guest that they have referred.

It’s been raining for almost three full days and watching the snow shrivel down to a thin, pocked, dirty mound could be depressing. But, in the name of  optimism, we came up with five great things about this late January rain-a-thon.

1. If you’re out skiing it in, the rain is a blast. The snow is always soft and spongy and there’s never anyone else out there to get in your way.

2. This rain will wash away the slick-as-Exxon ice layer that has been plaguing the ski areas for weeks.

3. This rain will percolate through the entire snowpack and eliminate the depth hoar layer that setup early in the season.

4. This rain will make an excellent, well-compacted base layer for the SNOW* that’s forecast for next week.

5. As the temperature drops, and the rain turns to snow, the snow will bond like glue, significantly decreasing avalanche danger on the next pow day.

*NOAA Says:

Today: Rain and snow showers. High near 38. Southwest wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Tonight: Snow showers likely, mainly before 10pm. Cloudy, with a low around 30. Southwest wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Sunday: Snow showers. High near 31. West wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible.

Sunday Night: Snow showers. Low around 22. West wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%.

Monday: Snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 29. East wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60

For years, my husband has kept a small calendar in his closet where he marks each day he skis and which of them are powder days. From this, he keeps a running tally of his powder percentage each season. I’m not sure whether he’ll ever abandon the old, simple system, but I recently came across a new website that might propel him into the 21st century. SkiLogs.com lets you keep an online journal of your ski days including the date you skied, the conditions, the weather and the lifts you rode. You can also upload photos from the day, track the exact time that you skied, and note the wind speed and direction. The site also has a vertical calculator for Squaw Valley; enter the lifts you skied and the number of laps on each and it calculates your vertical for the day.

I received a sample of the new EPIC Action Sports Video Camera from Stealth Cam last week and we’ve been testing it on Tahoe’s mountain biking and four-wheeling trails. The camera is a compact, lightweight device that weighs 2.5 ounces and measures 3 inches long. It has a 45-degree field-of-view and 2x zoom. The camera shoots video at 30 frames per second and can take up to nine consecutive still images at 5 megapixels. The small, cylindrical camera is housed in a waterproof case which screws on and off. It comes with a variety of straps, clips and pads so that you can attach it to a bike seat, helmet, your handlebars, or almost anywhere else. The camera stores video and still images on an SD card. The 2GB card we’ve been using stores about an hour of video. For longer trips, it’s easy to swap in new cards as you go.

Overall, the camera is a powerful tool in a small, rugged package. The video quality is pretty good and the camera is proving to be durable and easy to use. We’ve started on a project to collect footage of local trails and match it up with GPS data for those trails to present Flash movies that let you see what each trail looks like around every twist and turn. We hope to get the first few videos posted soon, so stay tuned for that.

Ortovox saw a 49% increase in sales last season, with their new S1 Sensor Transceiver accounting for most of the increase.

The flip open S1 Sensor Tranceiver transmits with a turn of an external switch built into the case’s hinge. Opening the case puts the user in search mode, where the LCD screen becomes a digital “map” with body icons for each of the four closest buried victims. As the searcher moves the S1’s screen continually updates the size, position, and corresponding numeric distance readout for each icon in real-time.

Built-in digital compass and inclinometer sensors provide directional information, in addition to the base distance and direction data delivered to the S1’s microprocessor via its three antennas. The S1 digests and converts all of this burial-location data into screen displays for precision in single and multiple rescue scenarios. The software allows each victim, once pinpointed, to be electronically marked or “flagged” allowing the S1 searcher to move on and pinpoint the location of the next
closest victim.

The S1 also contains a digital thermometer, battery life readout and self-diagnostic tools.

In July 2001, I flew to South America to ski Las Lenas, Argentina. We got several feet of snow the first night had the whole powder-covered mountain to ourselves. The best thing about Las Lenas, aside from its long, steep chutes is its lack of crowds. Argentineans prefer to stay on the intermediate trails or in the lodge, especially when it snows. For lots more detail, here’s an article I wrote on my trip to Las Lenas, Argentina. Here are the photos.

Check out new shades from companies like Spy, Smith, Dragon, Electric, Giro, Uvex and Zeal.
Preview new sunglasses for 2008-09 here >>

Here’s a preview of new helmets and goggle systems for 2008-09, including descriptions of features and photos, from all the major manufactures: Smith, Giro, Salomon, Electric, Spy, Scott, Dragon, Marker, Zeal, Swans, K2, Bolle and Uvex.