Strawberry 4/3 evening session

[Jason Klein]

Driving from PC, skies were cloudy but no snow thru the Hebe, but it steadily thickened up heading towards Daniels. Arrived around 5 to not quite whiteout, but definitely snowy conditions at Strawberry with wind in the mid-to-high teens. I talked Chris S into cutting his naptime short to come join me and he arrived 15 mins later. There were 4 other people there, but they stayed near the parking area and we didn't see them much. There was a fresh 6-8 inches so i rigged the 15 to power thru it. Out on the hills, the wind was a bit stronger, solid high teens and not gusty, which was a nice change from recent sessions i've had. The problem today was visibility, and starting out i had some real vertigo issues. Finally found a spot over near the small cornice to the south of the parking area that had a bunch of scrub sticking up, which made it much easier to see, and we spent most of the session there throwing jumps. As the evening wore on, the wind steadily picked up to low 20's, which got to be a handful on the 15 (Chris on his 14), but it didn't make sense to change out a kite at 6:30. The last 40 minutes were quite juicy. Just bring the kite overhead and up you'd go with huge floaty airs on the big kite. Just needed to make sure there were some plants sticking up near the landing so you could see the ground coming. Made one one trip up the big hill to the south, but the wind was oorderline too strong for the kites we had and it was really tough visability there, so i didn't stay long there.

The snow really was fantastic and there was plenty of wind - best conditions for me in a month or so. If there had been any visibility, it would have been one of the top sessions of the winter. If there's any wind this weekend, head to strawbs for great snow conditions.

[bigwavedave]

I'll second the epic snow & wind. Rachel and I were there from about 3:30 to 6:30 and it was for sure one of the best days of the year. It was certainly not a total whiteout but you did have to keep a sharp look to see terrain changes. Killer day though for powering through the fresh powder and catching big air. We did stay closer to the parking lot - simply because the snow was so good everywhere and it was strong enough that I was having a blast without feeling like I had to venture out to the hills (not to mention the low visibility issues when it came to landing jumps). EPIC afternoon. We didn't make it out on saturday but hopefully this will keep up for a little longer. Friday just had me jonesing for more!!