Juneuary turned to Januburied and nobody is complaining about a drought in northern California anymore. My friend Andrew and I have been talking about getting out and skiing together for years, and we finally made it happen a few weeks back. The question “is there any snow in Tahoe?” now having a definitive answer in the affirmative, the hordes and massive snow dumps have made Tahoe fully intolerable on the weekend. Thus, we headed north to the idyllic backcountry terrain of Lassen Volcanic National Park, and it was good.
Andrew in the trees.
This particular cycle underperformed a bit in Lassen compared to Tahoe, which actually made travel and avalanche risk a bit more manageable. Nevertheless there was plenty of new snow and we opted to keep it mellow and play in the lower angle trees. But don’t get me wrong, there’s no shortage of snow out there.
Me in the visitor center parking lot.
There’s a bit of snow around the lodge (Andrew).
From the standpoint of photography and photo gear, this was my first time out with the new Sony a6500. The a6000 with the original 18–200mm F3.5-6.3 lens has proven to be a pretty powerful and small all around kit for moving quickly in the backcountry, though I do easily exceed the a6000’s buffer when shooting action. With the improved buffer of the a6500 I should be able to shoot more freely. Backcountry skiing being what it is (far more time spent climbing then skiing), it’s hard to interrupt the flow of the skiing to set up photo ops. As much as I was able to pull out the camera, I had no real complaints about the kit and was able to capture some close action. Keeping the shutter speed up, in the trees on an overcast day, resulted in some fairly noisy files, but I don’t know any kit this size that would’ve fared any better.
Andrew showing off the tips of his new Black Crows skis (which he’s super stoked on).
Not quite steep and deep enough for face shots, but we came close!
In all, it was a fun trip with some great storm day skiing. I love it when a plan comes together.
