The Chicken

The Chicken crashing the Vallée Blanche party in 2013.

The Chicken showed up again on another recent ski trip, so I thought I'd post an explanation:

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Jeff and I entrained Mike, Kim and Sue in the mountain bike equivalent of a Stupid Ski Tour. The goal was to ride all the way around Donner Lake, staying as high as we could. Well...we did set a shuttle so we could get BBQ at Smoky's at the end of the ride instead of pedaling all the way back up to the top of Tahoe-Donner where we started: meatheads we may be, but we don't miss a lot of meals.

From the Glacier Way trailhead in Tahoe-Donner, we pedaled out the Rim Trail and down to the Castle Peak trailhead which was fun, as always. Then we crossed under the Interstate and things got hard. 

The Donner train tunnels

Evidently forgetting how to actually read a topographic map, we eventually figured out by trial and error that the best way to ride over to Donner Pass from Donner Summit is to jump on the Hole-In-The-Ground route and contour around below Boreal, past the Sierra Snow Lab and up the paved road past Norden to the top before shifting to the abandoned train tunnels. On this day, however, we didn't know that yet and ended up gasping and shoving our bikes up the Boreal fall line to where we could traverse over to Donner Ski Ranch then drop down to the pass on snow cat roads at mach-schnell.

Given that our route was often too steep to ride, we had a lot of time to look around while we wore ourselves out breathing hard. It's always interesting to see just how much crap accumulates under a ski lift: I remember there was a lot of pot paraphernalia that day. And someone had dropped a small rubber chicken that they had inexplicably been carrying to go skiing. Or, maybe they threw it out? The whole rubber chicken phenomenon is really weird and rather disgusting when you think about it. Maybe they suddenly realized that they just didn't want the awful thing in their pocket anymore...

At any rate, The Chicken was kind of nasty-looking, even after a water-bottle wash. Turns out that this skanky look was actually a painted-on feature. Someone tossed the ugly little thing in their pack, probably intending to remand it to the trash when they got home. But The Chicken had other ideas, and it somehow began showing up in all of our gear whenever we'd travel. If it showed up in your emergency repair kit in the middle of some long skin track, of course it made sense to get rid of the horrid thing as quickly as you could bury it in someone else's luggage (or recruit someone else to do it for you). 

The Chicken would vanish for years at a time, then suddenly appear when you pulled out your warm gloves or first-aid kit in the US, Europe, Canada or Mexico. Having no doubt originated in China, that vile chicken is now very well-traveled, indeed.

At least we figured out a way to keep a chunk of plastic out of the landfill, I suppose, but it's not a very practical idea to scale up.

The ill-advised route (Donner Lake is off the map to the right). Better to contour left around the bump.

 

More Skiing Chicken sightings by Kim & Mike in MT, UT, WY:

Peavine!

J&F retired, COVID has us all outside and finally ready to get together again, and it hasn't snowed in donkey's years. Even if it did, the crush of punters makes it impossible to get to the snow. So, after a long hiatus, we're seriously overdue for a return to Stupid Ski Touring!

I've been eye-balling Peavine this season because it actually held a fair bit of snow for a while in December, and afterward has sported the biggest leeward wind-deposits I've ever seen up there. I thought I should ski it when it was white, but didn't get around to it. 

Now, weeks later, if you are coming down from Truckee to Reno you don't see a speck of snow up there. But thanks to the massive December dump and accompanying gale-force winds, there are still thin cornice strips running down the hidden shady side of the ridges. I badgered Jeff for weeks to go up there with me, but--sensibly--he was having none of it.

Today, Kim and I decided to go check it out after, inexplicably, neither of us cancelled. Fully expecting an essentially miserable day, we were delighted to find easy parking, no crowds, sun, warm temps, wildflowers, a pleasant hike, and surprisingly entertaining skiing...but no Superb Owl.

Who? Faerthen & Kim

Gear recommendation: a lounge chair

More photos here.

As you can see, the dog walkers we met were understandably confused. But everything was going well until we left the road and things got steeeeep!

Wildflowers are starting, like this tiny Astragalus.

Over 1K of vertical and more than a mile of distance, with surprisingly fun snow...plus it was hard to get lost.

After skiing, we ordered take-out and sat on the roof-top terrace to admire our line. You can see that there was just one dirt break on the whole skinny route and no tree climbing, suggesting that the day might not actually qualify as a Stupid Ski Tour.