PSIA-AASI

3.15.2010

GWAP 2010: Lake Tahoe

Tahoe is awesome—if you’ve never been, you’ve gotta go. With several world-class resorts to choose from, you could spend weeks skiing and riding the slopes surrounding the second deepest lake in the country. But for this segment of Go With a Pro, we chose locals’ favorite, and the home of PSIA-AASI Team members Doug Pierini and Bill Bowness, Alpine Meadows.

Alpine Meadows is, in a word, playful! With tons of steep drops, bumpy chutes, awesome trees, secret stashes, and wide open bowls, it offers a little something for everyone, which is good because everyone was there. Well, not everyone, but a lot of rippin’ skiers and riders including PSIA-AASI Adaptive Team coach Bill Bowness, PSIA Alpine Team member (and Alpine Meadows resort services and snowsports school director) Doug Pierini, AASI Snowboard Team member Josh Spoelstra, PSIA Alpine Team captain Michael Rogan, and PSIA Alpine Team member Robin Barnes.
 
We started out filming with Bill, who gave us an introduction to the mountain where he is the technical director at Disabled Sports-Far West, which makes its home at Alpine Meadows. Bill gave us some awesome tips for negotiating the lively terrain (you will have to see next season’s show to find out how you, too, can rip Alpine like Bill), after which we paid a visit to his garage and the rock crawler (of 32 Degrees fame).
 
On day two, we got the view from the director’s chair with Doug, who, after a short but winding and rocky hike, exposed us to some of the nooks and crannies known only to Alpine locals. It was then that the clouds rolled in (Doug, being the director, can change the weather), and we were in for a few days of snow. The dropping temps, however, turned out to be a good thing, as that afternoon we made Josh hike and hike, and hike some more, to capture each and every angle of his snowboard turns on camera.

The Rogan-Barnes duo joined us on days three and four to show us how it’s done in powder, trees, bumps, and steeps (again, you’ll have to stay tuned to find out exactly how). With one day of snow, and one day of sun, we captured Alpine at its best. Off-snow, we joined Michael and Robin at home, where we munched on apps while Michael tuned skis and told us the story of how the two met—we were all a little misty, once we got past the part about Michael being kind of a dork.

Three down, one to go folks! Next up, Crested Butte . . .

(Photos courtesy of Andy Hawk)