Last week I was lucky enough to get invited along on a back country
skiing hut trip to the Benson hut in the North Lake Tahoe area. We had a
great crew of a combination of both new and experienced back country
skiers. For me it was one of my first real back country skiing
experiencing and a great chance to test out and learn all my new
equipment. I was stoked.
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| Getting ready to go and testing out our avalanche beacons |
The
trip started out with a ride up the chair lift at Sugar Bowl to cut off
a few miles of the ski in to the hut, which allowed us more time to
enjoy the hut when we got there. Getting on and off the lift with a big
and heavy backpack was probably the most nervous I was the entire trip.
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| Annie and Scott riding up the lift at Sugar Bowl |
After
getting to the top of the ridge via the lift, it was time to head out
of bounds and into the back country. Before heading out though we took
some time to check out the map and scout our route.
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| Scott pointing out our route |
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| Heading out of bounds and into the goods |
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The
route to the hut involved about 3 miles of skinning and a little bit of
hiking due to the less than ideal snow conditions. Overall though it
was a beautiful skin in and only took us a few hours.
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| Skiing up to the hut |
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| Riley checking out the view from the top of the hut |
After
getting settled in, it was time to get what we came for- some fresh
powder turns. Before skiing though we needed to evaluate the avalanche
danger to make sure it was safe to go. So we dug a pit and did a
stability test on the snow. Lucky for us, we were able to determine that
it was safe for us to ski!
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| Digging the pit |
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| Testing the snow stability |
Because
the Benson hut sits on the top of the ridge rather than the bottom like
most, rather than skinning up and skiing down, you ski down then skin
up. The conditions were pretty sweet and the turns were all fresh. We
did a couple laps on the face below Mt. Anderson and next to the hut
before settling in to enjoy the beautiful sunset.
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| Riley giving it |
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| Alex charging the slope |
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| Riley making his way back up to the top |
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| Beautiful sunset with an awesome group of friends |
After
a great day of skiing it was time to cook up some dinner. The wood
burning stove worked out to be a great stove top for cooking up our
burritos. The rest of our night was spent enjoying dinner, drinks and
good company under a full moon.
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| Cooking inside the hut |
The
next morning we woke up excited for another day in the snow. We decided
to start off with a hike to the summit of Mt. Anderson to ski down its
face. It wasn't an easy hike to the top, but the view and the ski
descent made it well worth the effort.
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| Riley making his way to the summit |
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| Scott taking a break while the rest of the group made it to the top |
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| Me on my way down from the summit (Photo: Nick Uruquart) |
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| Fresh Tracks! |
After
making it down from the summit, it was time to start moving in the
direction back to Sugar Bowl. Instead of going back out the way we came
in, we decided to ski down into the bowl below the ridge and skin our
way back out. This allowed us to get to ski a lot more and really enjoy
the snow. It turned out great and the skin back up to the ridge turned
out to be pretty relatively chill.
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| Deciding where to go next |
Eventually
we made it back in bounds to the Sugar Bowl resort, where we skied down
some groomers and back to our car. We finished up the trip with Mexican
food and beers in Truckee before everyone went on their way in various
directions. What a great trip with a great crew!
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| The crew: Riley, Annie, Nick, Me, Alex, Alex and Scott |
