Guy LaDouche

Ski, eat, poop, repeat, with a rinse every now and then.

Sugar Bowl Conditions – Welcome Back Winter!

As I drove out to Sugar Bowl from Tahoe City on Sunday morning, I knew I had made the right call. The traffic on 89 heading into Squaw and Alpine looked quite stressful while and the mellow drive to Sugar Bowl via old 40 was peaceful and scenic. As expected, the crowds were very manageable and the longest wait for a chair all day wasn’t even 5 minutes. This makes going bell to bell a bit more challenging…
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Guy LaDouche |
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Alpine Meadows Conditions – The Return of Wintery Snow!

After a very wet weekend of skiing on Saturday and Sunday, Monday and Tuesday felt like the return of wintery conditions. Two systems came through Tahoe from Friday-Monday and dropped a total of 18″ at Alpine Meadows and “26 at Squaw. Sunday was the worst day of the storm with temps in the 40s and heavy precip most of the day. By Monday, the temps dropped and we had legit snow falling from top to bottom all day. Many of the large bumps that had formed around the mountain were filled in and smoothed out by the new snow.
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Guy LaDouche |
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Sugar Bowl Conditions Report – Beautiful June-uary Day

It was a beautiful drive up the old Highway 40 past a cloud covered Donner Lake to get to Sugar Bowl on Monday morning. We probably arrived earlier than we should have, as everything had frozen over the night before. By about 10:30, the east facing slopes of Mt. Disney were starting to soften up. It was warm out with temps in the 50s; a full on June-uary day. The best runs of the day were on Market Street, East Face, Nancy’s Couloir and Sugar Bowl. We went back to check on Mt. Lincoln after lunch, but most everything was still frozen solid. Back to Disney we went, which was still riding […]
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Guy LaDouche |
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New Zealand Backcountry Conditions Report: The Stunning Summit of Mt. Ruapehu

The Stunning Crater Lake at the top of Mt. Ruapehu

They say the best time to ski at Turoa is in the spring, and I’d have to agree. While the lower mountain is looking quite grim, everything on the upper mountain still has amazing coverage. Ripping groomers in the morning followed by soft corny goodness off-piste by 11am make for lots of legs days this spring. From the summit, you can see into the epic crater lake that sits atop Mt. Ruapehu, which is an active volcano. The run down to the […]
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Guy LaDouche |
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New Zealand Conditions Report: ‘Turoa Pow’ and Spring Skiing

After being closed 3 out of 4 days (Fri, Sat, Mon) due to poor weather earlier in the week, Mt. Ruapehu got a much needed refill of the white stuff. Turoa got close to 30 CMs (just shy of a foot) during the closures, which gave us a really fun mini pow day on Sunday and two highly wind loaded spring days on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sunday had the best snow conditions of the week as we had a nice soft, wintery layer to ski on. Big Bowl, Little Bowl […]
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Guy LaDouche |
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Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand Weekend Conditions: Bluebird Sandwich with a Cloudy Filling

Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL) operates two ski areas on Mt. Ruapehu: Turoa and Whakapapa. Here are some key differences between the two:
Whakapapa is on the north-western slopes of Mt. Ruapehu and gets more sun exposure than Turoa. They are the largest ski area in New Zealand.
Turoa is on the south-western slopes of Mt. Ruapehu and gets more snow than Whakapapa. They have […]
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Guy LaDouche |
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