That's A Mean Bowl.

For the 1st time, I hit up the Palisades at Sugar Bowl. And I don't mean the corner of the Palisades like I sometimes do. I mean I hiked straight to the center and dropped in. The Palisades is supposed to be the most gnar area of the resort with steep chutes, cliffs, crap like that. I generally avoided it because of all the hype. And they do LOOK gnar from the lifts. Gnar enough to scare most people off. Today, there were so many people at the resort that I was kinda pushed to go somewhere where a billion sheep weren't tracking out the pow. It was kinda neat, hiking along the ridge above the Palisades. Every so often I'd scoot over to the edge of the cornice to check out the chute below while hoping the cornice wouldn't break off. If it was over-vert, I'd use my board to pry a piece of the cornice off and make a little peep hole. Anyway, I found a spot I thought looked good, strapped in and went. What's weird was what was going through my head at that moment. I should've been thinking about avalanche conditions. About the chute ahead. About hidden rocks. Is that bump in the terrain ice, snow, rock? Is that blind spot a roller or a cliff? Should I straight air or throw a spin? Is the landing tracked, or is that avy run off? Is this sluff or am I about to get buried? Instead, I was thinking: what's it gonna be like living in London? Are things gonna be cool? Will I go to Spain? Who will I be hanging out with? Before I knew it, I was running out the flats below the Palisades. Which brings me to the next point: the Palisades sorta suck. They're not THAT difficult. Sure, it's steep, but you get so much speed that it's like 2 turns and you're at the bottom. I mean, yeah, it was fun and i'd do it again, but the hype kinda let me down.

Only a mean turd can match the power of this mean bowl.