It was pouring rain at the bottom, but we got about two feet of snow above 8,000’.

If this were Squaw, there would be a horde of belligerent locals tearing up the slopes like a pack of howler monkeys, but we got fresh tracks every run—despite coming out after noon—because there were so few people out.

Heavy snow, but still a lot of fun for the first 500’ or so.

Taking a walk after dinner in the rain. Powder day, dude.

Boy, what a wet start to the year, but at least it’s snowing at 8,600’.

It looks deeper here than it really was, but even a couple of inches of snow make the groomers much more fun.

There’s no snow on the run that takes you back to Northstar Village, so you have to ride the gondola down at the end of every day.

Nancy is downloading her ski data on EpicMix, which keeps track of how many runs you take and how many vertical feet you’ve skied. We’re almost to 100,000’.

We were bored skiing the same groomers over and over, so we made a project of skiing all seven or eight runs off the East Ridge.

They’re all very short and hardly distinguishable from one another—they’re so similar that I can’t remember their names, or how many there are. It’s a long, flat traverse to get to the last of the runs.

The snow is very crusty where it hasn’t been skied, but the snow is nice and dry where the crust has been skied out.

The runs off the west ridge of the summit are all skiable (as you can see in the background), but are still closed. I think Patrol is being extra cautious about opening terrain after the fatality at Alpine Meadows a couple of weeks ago that was caused, in part, by thin conditions.

The runs off of the east ridge at Northstar feature all natural snow. Wow, what a concept! The snowpack above 8,000’ is just deep enough to cover the obstacles.

A couple of the runs feature a few moguls. Very few.

There aren’t many people out skiing, but a ton of non-skiers—just people on vacation looking for something to do—came into Northstar Village after skiing ended for the ice skating and the bars. How many people? Northstar rented 900 pairs of skates during the evening.

It was a long night; we had to break up a couple of near-fights at the ice rink and spent the whole evening dealing with people doing things they shouldn’t.

It rained yesterday, so we spent the day shopping in Reno.

Northstar opened up the Comstock chairlift today, but only the runs off the east ridge. Still, it’s nice to have top to bottom skiing and a few more groomers to choose from.

The snow is changing from soft and edgeable to scraped hardpack with sugar snow on top. The forecast is for more dry weather, so we’ll be scraping for awhile.

Another couple hours of turns before work, taking advantage of some sun before it rains tonight. Notice how Martis Valley is completely bare.

Nancy got on the teles again. She’s pretty good at it, just needs to do it more.

Style with ease = steez.

Style with dork = stork.

We were supposed to maybe have the snow level drop down to lake level last night, but obviously that didn’t happen. Instead, we have another drizzly day of snow melting away.

We skipped skiing today because of the Sunday crowd. No sense standing in line to ski the same groomer over and over.

It’s been so wet lately that the moss is starting to bloom.

We came out in the pouring rain for an hour and a half of skiing before work. You can see the snow barely sticking to the trees at 8,000’.

At least there were no lift lines.

We came out for a couple hours to get some turns in before work. Wet, drizzly day, but still decent snow on the two groomers available.

I’m wearing a waterproof kayaking jacket that I found in a thrift store. Now I know why it was in a thrift store—it leaks.

Nancy got bold and broke out the teles for her second day of skiing. Still nice weather, but it’s turning wet tomorrow.

Northstar opened two days earlier than expected. We came out on a nice sunny day to get some turns on the two runs that are open.

It’s been cold lately, around 1° last night.

We had temps in the low teens last night and another couple inches of dry snow. The forecast is even colder for tonight—single digits.

Looking across Martis Valley toward Northstar.

We got 6” or so last night, depending on what surface the snow landed on. The temps are staying cold, so the resorts will be able to starting blowing snow.

It’s going to snow this afternoon. I’ve got about another cord and a half to get done before the weather hits.

Another day of splitting wood. It’s not that hard, it’s just boring.

I came out to Donner Lake to help Nancy wrap trees for the winter. We do this to keep the snow load from deforming and snapping branches.

It gets difficult to corral the branches when the trees are larger and have stiff branches. You wind up with lots of scratches on your wrists.

We went to the annual ski swap in Truckee. I got a pair of fat skis, Nancy got some tele boots.

The Fish & Game guy was too busy to come out and set his bear trap, so he had me do it.

Most of the dumpsters around Northstar have been upgraded to the bear-proof kind, so we don’t have nearly the bear problems we had a couple of years ago.

It rained a little last night, and we’ve been having warm temps, too warm for the ski areas to blow snow.

The ski resorts sold a ton of passes after that first snowfall, but so far it’s been a typical Sierra fall: snow a little and melt a lot.