STRETCHING THE SEASON INTO SPRING How to Have Fun in the Snow In the Springtime Sunshine
	MARCH 2005

by Jenny Parma

In the opinion of a lot of us, the best skiing conditions occur exactly at that time when most people hang up their skis and begin shopping for next summer’s aviator shade sunglasses or Tahitian-style beach rags. During the longer, warmer days of spring, when umbrellas get tossed for shorts, Lake Tahoe is just gearing up for its spring ski season.

There are moments when you can ski through the edges of nirvana while blazing down the slopes in a T-shirt and slicing through a springtime harvest of corn snow. Instead of waiting 15 minutes in a shivering cold lift line, you sometimes can ski to the bottom of a run in the bright sunshine and flop onto a lift chair without breaking momentum.

In this article I will help you make a good situation better by passing on to you some advice from Lake Tahoe locals and snow pros for overcoming ice and slush.

Smooth Like Butta
All right, I admit that there’s nothing really equal to barreling your way through a cloud of new powder snow. But, after all, how often do you really get to do that even in the winter? Usually the snow is packed pretty hard by the time you get to it.

On the other hand, skiing across corn snow has its own set of delights. Corn snow is the term for snow that has melted and refrozen into a rough granular surface. If you never skied on this stuff, get ready for an adventure. Corn snow makes skiing or boarding feel like gliding across a surface that has been smothered in a thick layer of butter. Indescribable!

For us dedicated elite of skiers and boarders, who can never get too much of the white stuff, late season corn snow feeds the frenzy of the snow bomber dwelling inside of us. It’s a wonderful time to hit the slopes. Lift lines are reduced to manageable, or even negligible lengths, and mid-afternoon temperatures average in the balmy 50s.

Added to that is the always-strong possibility of fresh powder on its way. More than once in recent years snow has pounded Tahoe until mid-June.

Tahoe averages three to five hundred inches of snowfall per year, and at least a third of the pack arrives in springtime. That’s as much as 13 feet of spring snow, folks!

Resisting the Water Factor
Before jaunting up to the mountains in search of corn snow, experts suggest preparing equipment to prevent nasty spills on hard ice and slushy snow. One way of doing this is to prevent trapped water from collecting on your skis or board.

Any trapped water collecting as soft ice slows you down when you hit slush, or causes friction when attempting to slide across ice. Both conditions produce unexpected changes in direction and velocity leading, in some cases, to bad falls often resulting in damaged egos, at least, and sometimes even in broken limbs.

You can prevent water build-up by carefully waxing your equipment and getting professional tune-ups, which include sharpening edges and stone grinding.

Wax — A thorough coating of wax, the most important component for spring skiing, is an important factor in wicking water from skis or boards. The wax coating also helps you tackle the mountain at a faster clip and provides increased maneuverability for dodging sinkholes.

Apply either hot wax or a layer of warm-weather wax to the base of your skis or board every session, if you spend a lot of time on the slopes. If you spend more time in the bar at the lodge than you actually spend skiing or boarding, you can increase this to one application for every two to three sessions.

A heated clothes iron becomes a low-tech tool for applying wax to your equipment in four easy steps.

1. Heat the wax by holding it against the sole plate of the iron with the point facing down.
2. Slowly dribble two lines of wax along the length of the ski or board.
3. Smooth the wax by running the iron along the piece of equipment for even distribution. Let the wax melt and cool.
4. The next day scrape off any excess wax using a plastic tool.

NOTE: This practice absolutely destroys your clothes iron for any future uses having to do with clothes.

For warm-weather wax application, Dave Kennedy, who works at Tahoe Dave’s Skis and Boards in Truckee, recommends, “Take a piece of warm-weather wax and crayon it on your skis in short, diagonal lines.”

Fred Besch, also a Tahoe Dave’s employee, says to keep a stick of wax in your pocket while on the mountain for on-the-spot treatments. Fred adds that Rain-X makes for a comparable substitute. Just spray on and go.

Tune-ups — Maintain your skis and boards in good condition by sharpening and refining them with regular tune-ups. If you are a hard-core user, get a tune-up every season. Get the works, which includes:

• Repairs
• Stone grinding
• Waxing
• Sharpening edges

If you don’t spend hours and hours every weekend on the slopes, you can do the full tune-up thing less often than once a year. However, plan to get touch-ups done on your equipment, as needed. Especially for spring skiing you must maintain knife-sharp edges, since edges play the key role in your ability to slice through ice.

Stone grinding is the other key ingredient, besides waxing in equipment maintenance, especially for spring skiing. Over time ski and board bases become really trashed, ending up with a chaotic maze of scratches and gouges resembling a cat’s scratching post.

Skis and boards provide optimal performance only when their bases are flat and smooth. Modern equipment is built with such a super hard base material that they can only be made smooth by using a commercial stone grinding machine.

The stone grinding tool first flattens and smoothes all the flaws out of the base. The machine then lays down a pattern to enhance the board or ski’s gliding and turning characteristics. The pattern performs the same service for the base that a tread pattern performs for a tire. The resulting pattern may be course, medium, fine, or very fine.

Having a properly conditioned base on ski equipment is more important for spring skiing than for other times of the year. A proper pattern will channel to the sides any water that comes in contact with the ski or board. Water can’t build up as slushy ice. This greatly increases your gliding capabilities and maneuverability. A properly tuned base minimizes the tumbles and injuries that inevitably result from improperly maintained equipment.

Tune-ups keep your skis or board in trim efficiency. Proper wax provides maximum maneuverability and speed. Maintaining the whole package will keep you upright and in control of your progress down the springtime sunny hills — most of the time.

In Search of Corn Snow
Beyond three to five days in the future, the only thing that weather professionals can say with absolute conviction when predicting Tahoe skiing conditions is that the weather conditions will prove to be unpredictable.

Throughout the past decade, blizzards have occurred in March, April, and May, with small snow squalls still coming down as late as June. Average springtime temperatures during the period have vacillated from the high 80s to below zero.

When temperatures rise, groomers and snow machines help resist the onslaught of springtime slush and ice, extending the skiing season far beyond the limits that the changeable weather conditions would otherwise have permitted.

You can prolong your time on the slopes at the end of the season by following these words of wisdom that I got from some professionals:

• “The early bird doesn’t always get the worm,” says Stan Barter of Dave’s Tahoe. Take the early morning off and let the sun unfreeze patches of ice on the ground. When you hit the slopes, follow the sun.
• As the day starts to warm up into early afternoon, advises Andy D’Acquisto, manager of Any Mountain, San Francisco, stick to shadows and non-direct sunlight. Try half-day skiing or boarding and take an early or late lunch.
• The right equipment and skiing and boarding skills can keep you upright on slush and ice: Use longer, stiffer skis and wider, stiffer boards, which provide more traction and greater contact with icy terrain.
• Take steeper, faster runs in slush. The friction slows you down so you can do hills that normally would be too fast for you.
• Don’t over-edge and don’t overturn. It is easy in this stuff to dig in, which increases your chances of falling.
• When you must slow down, stay on an edge of your board or ski by shifting weight from one side to another. Complete turns too easily lead to wipeouts.
• A final important word of advice: Don’t stay on the slopes past the stopping point that good sense would dictate. Too much slush and ice can be both dreary and deadly.

Having fun in marginal conditions is one thing, but no fun can be derived from falling down ten times on a slope that you couldn’t navigate easily with a set of crampons.