Mt. Tallac, Tahoe Backcountry

The objective, Mt. Tallac.

I have lived here in California for almost three years now and this was the first time that I had skied the Tahoe backcountry. According to some random page on the internet Mt. Tallac (9,739ft) is the "quintessential Lake Tahoe backcountry ski descent", so naturally that is where we went. The climb to the summit is a roughly 3,250ft climb and the views were picturesque.

Me

Jeremy Koons

Binh Ta

We left Roseville, CA at 4:30am to drive to Tahoe and get a pre-dawn start. 

The skin track up from the highway near the Spring Creek turn off on the south end of the lake was well used,  icy, and steep, making it a bit difficult. We started in a neighborhood of cabins, mostly boarded up for the winter. It took us 5.5hrs to make it to the summit. We could see everything from up there. 

Binh with Lake Tahoe in the background.

Skinning.                                                  Getting closer....

The last skin-able section up to the final bootpack.

 The ski down offered hard conditions up high and nice creamy snow down further in the the trees with a few fun rock formations to play on. We made it back to the car by 2pm. Awesome tour.

The summitt of Mt. Tallac!

Binh walking the highway back to the car.

****Nerd Alert****  During the skin up Binh was having a difficult time due to the icy, steep conditions as well as a bit of inexperience. Jeremy and I started discussing how many steps we may have taken on skins to become advanced skinners which lead to us trying to figure it out. So, here is my best guess and how I came up with it. 

Each step on skis up a hill probably moves you forward a little bit over a boot length depending on the steepness of the terrain. A normal ski boot's sole length is about 300mm which is roughly 12". So we can estimate that each step moves the skier forward about 15" (1.25ft). Distance hiked, not skied, during an average tour is probably about 4 miles(21,120ft). This means that on an average tour we take about 16,890 steps. During a dedicated season I got into the backcountry skiing about 30 times giving me 506,700 steps per season. I have probably gotten in the equivalent of about 4 seasons of 30 backcountry ski days a season giving me roughly a total of 2,026,800 steps up to this point in my life. So, Bihn, don't feel to bad that it was a rough tour. Practice makes perfect.