Bear Valley Back Country Ski/Snowboard Trip

The 2009/2010 ski season came finally to an end late May with the last trip to Bear Valley. We started the weekend by getting the equipments (snow shoes, beacons...) to MAS at Bear Valley Village.

On Sunday not so early morning, we hiked up Super Cub, Spring Gap to the top of Porridge bowl, where the kids warmed up on the cornice.

We then, dropped Cliff Run to reach Mickey's meadow.

Since the snow was getting too wet on that side of the mountain, we made some fun runs from the top of Snoopy Dog hill.

The video was shot with an iPod nano and edited with Final Cup Pro. Enjoy.

Music from The National, Song England.

Bear Valley Back Country Trip - May 2010

For the last trip at Bear Valley, we hiked up to the top of the ski resort with snow shoes. It took us about 1 hour. Benoit and Lucas warmed up by jumping the cornice. We finished up the day by a few runs of Snoopy hill.


Lucas is getting ready. The snow shoe ended up too large for him, so he hiked up with his ski boots. Not a problem, since the snow was icy enough.

View to the Bear Valley lodge

Lucas off the cornice. They did not jump from the highest point because of the risk that the cornice will collapse!

Benoit "Flying" off the cornice.

Benoit can be seen on the top of the hill.

Mikeys Meadow - Bear Valley Celebration

Bear Valley honored and celebrated Mike Young (Bear Valley sport director), who passed away just before the start of the season.

The celebration started with a mini park session with snowboard and ski instructors. Check Tyler Skivington under flip as well as Chris Johnson front flip.

Benoit decided to ski instead of snowboard and since he has skied at most a hand full of time in his life, it was epic.

The second part of the video shows the torchlight parade where skiers and snowboarder created a river of fire on Bear Valley slopes.
Finally, Sam Nilsen unveiled the Mikey's Meadow where all the instructors meet before the class.

Music is from MGMT, album Oracular Spectacular, song Kids.

Bear Valley Back Flip Session

Matt Geenlee, Corey Sciotto, James Young and Shamus have step up their game with this back flip session on Blue Jay (Bear Valley). A fairly steep kicker was built the day before that video was shot. You'll see Matt, Corey, James and Shamus (snowboard) landing their first ever back flip (barrel roll).
The video also feature a "Bail" sequence with the 1 and 1/2 flip from Corey, the not quite a flip by James, 360 attempt by Lucas (7 years) and Benoit big air crash...

Lucas at Bear Valley with Cody

At the beginning of the ski season, Lucas was part of Cody's group. The photo were taken by Sandy.

Lucas on Super Cub

Lucas on Tiger back side?

Bear Valley Devo Team

Benoit switch jump over the log.

Check out the new pictures from last weekend at Bear Valley here.

Bear Valley Back Country Ski

Brian convinced Jeff and I that it would be a good idea to back country ski at Bear Valley. Since we did not have any experience with that type of terrain, we register at MAS for a day trip. Steve was our talented guide. Patty, Brian, Steve chose to telemark while Jeff opted for a special binding on his Alpine ski and I for my snowboard and snow shoes.

We started at 9:00 AM and hiked up to the top of the mountain before we cruzed down hill in this beautiful setup.

Steve cruzing

Patty, Brian, Steve and Jeff

Brian

Steve and Jeff

A short video of our trip

Bear Valley - Ski trip

We spent one week on vacation at Bear Valley just before Christmas. Only few slopes were open because of the lack of snow but that did not stop us from skiing and snowboarding.

Lucas and Benoit did very good. They are ready to go to the blue slopes soon. We stayed at Tamarack lodge few miles from the Bear Valley.

Bear Valley ski resort is south of lake Tahoe. The resort is family oriented which is good with our kids.

Tamarack lodge is very close from the slopes. They were not busy so we enjoyed the lodge for almost ourselves.
The kitchen is very handy.

Benoit snowboards...

Lucas-la bomba skies.

They have one room just for kids.

Benoit is reading some Scooby-Doo story for Lucas and Claire.