Fresh powder over fresh prints
Making art is hard when we're chasing snow every weekend. But a late night drive through a blizzard is what makes life worth living, eh?
The first good storm of the season hit Lake Tahoe in December. Meghan and I loaded our quivers into the Jeep and have been driving back and forth across the Sierra and Wasatch ranges looking for fresh snow ever since.
It means the Cypress studio is a little more ‘snowboard shop’ than ‘art space’ this time of year. And all of the time I should be spending on finishing national park prints is spent driving at night and riding during the day. In fact, I’m writing this issue from the new evo hotel in Tahoe City, CA, where I’m pretending to be inspired by the woods and the mountain and the Jeremy Jones curated ambiance… but the reality is that I have time to write because the whole upper mountain is on wind hold.
If you want a real peek into my soul, read Night Driving by Dick Dorworth. I’ve never read a more rambling, chaotic take on road tripping that better captures who I aspire to be in life. And it was originally published in the OG Mountain Gazette, an outdoor magazine based in Tahoe that you can’t say in this town without invoking a little nod of respect. So just take like 6 parts of my personality, publish it into book, and you’ll get a very Mac read.
Trips
We are tremendously blessed by having both Tahoe a quick 180 miles from our home and the ability to work from anywhere. It makes for such easy access to the slopes that avoiding a fresh storm takes effort.
Days on the mountain so far:
Dec 14 – Palisades Tahoe, CA
Dec 15 – Alpine Meadows, CA
Jan 11 – Palisades Tahoe, CA
Jan 25 – Sugar Bowl Resort, CA
Jan 26 – Sugar Bowl Resort, CA
Feb 1 – Kirkwood, CA
Feb 15 – Brighton, UT
Feb 16 – Brighton, UT
Feb 17 – Snowbasin, UT
Feb 20 – Brighton, UT
Feb 21 – Brighton, UT
Feb 22 – Snowbird, UT
Mar 15 – Palisades Tahoe, CA
Days still planned:
Mar 22 – Kirkwood, CA
Mar 23 – Heavenly, CA
Mar 28 – Palisades Tahoe, CA
Mar 29 – Alpine Meadows, CA
and with the way the snow is going… we’ll be skiing well into April?
The highlights
Palisades Tahoe, CA
Palisades Tahoe/Alpine Meadows has become our home mountain. We chose to go full Ikon pass this year in order to do both Tahoe and Utah (which is all on Ikon) together. Turns out, with Palisades, we lucked into pass access to some of the best terrain in the country. And Alpine is exactly the type of mountain that I want to hang out at—the parking lot is full of tailgaters, the riders are chill, and the crowds stay on the Palisades side because they’re chasing bigger cliffs (and forget that the woods and faces in Alpine are better).
We officially started our season at an outdoor rave in a blizzard, compliments of Tahoe Live. Don’t let revisionist history trick you: Lil Wayne was meant to headline. But being the reliable southern boy he is, he never showed. Instead, we got sets from Diplo and RL Grime with lasers and visuals projected onto the side of a mountain. After a day of snowboarding, dancing in a snow storm in your mountain gear is a whole mood. It set a pretty great tone for the rest of the season.
Brighton, UT
Brighton is sick. Utah snow is unreal. And the Cottonwood Canyons should be on your list to visit at least once in your life (maybe once in the winter and once in the summer… so twice).
I could talk endlessly about how every resort in Utah is just at a different caliber than Tahoe. The snow is soft and fluffy and stays perfect for weeks after a storm. But Brighton is the mountain that has me trying to convince Meghan to buy a place in Salt Lake. Imagine a resort with tree runs carved out by snowboarders and so many side hits and transitions that the whole place feels like a natural park. Imagine the best hotdog you’ve ever eaten after 4 hours in waist deep powder. Imagine literal heaven.
I’m wearing a Brighton hat right now. I am smitten.
The other great part? Most of the mountain is open at night. The runs and lifts have lights that keep snowboarding going all the way till 9pm, which means getting a full workday in and then hitting the mountain for a 6-9pm shift can be the little joy in Utah life that keeps you motivated to get through the day.
Sugar Bowl, CA
There’s an annual trip we do with friends that has settled into Sugar Bowl Resort as our permanent spot. Sugar Bowl is not one of the mountains that most people think of when you mention Tahoe skiing. It’s not on a multi-mountain pass, it’s a little more of a local spot, and it’s easy to miss unless you know it’s there. Getting into the village also requires taking a gondola down into the valley with all of your gear and a little sled pull to get to the house. It feels like Disney world. It’s even in an original Disney cartoon and Walt himself used to hang out there regularly.
But the important part: the off-piste terrain is great.
Cypress will be back to making prints soon. But “needing to be inspired by the mountains and the trees” is the excuse that I use for Cypress to live my life to the fullest. So I hope you’re here to keep up with the adventures too.
Cheers. I’ll catch you out there 🏔️🏂