Tahoe Ski Trip

A week or so before we were going to leave for Tahoe I started watching the weather reports and skiing reports in the area.  What an ugly site that was… mountains ½ open and no snow in the forecast. Knowing how good the snow can be in Tahoe, especially at Kirkwood after a powder dump, my hopes for a good ski trip had dwindled.  We made the trek out there and when we flew into Salt Lake City and saw snow everywhere my hopes were that maybe, just maybe, they had some snow further north on our next stop in Reno. Alas, when we flew into Reno a few hours later all we saw was high plains desert.  Our first day of skiing was Heavenly on Sunday and much to my surprise the snow was good. The whole mountain wasn’t open and with Gun Barrel closed (double diamond bump run under a main lift) I didn’t get my chance to freak-out Baker or Sliger with the lift ride up that slope, maybe next time.  The views from the top of Heavenly are some of the best I’ve seen in my 30+ years of skiing. Although not as spectacular as normal with the low snow fall they have had this year, it was still beautiful. Our next day of skiing was Squaw Valley, home of the 1960 Olympics. Same story on the snow, not all runs open but what they had open was decent and better than expected.  Our lift ticket was good for Squaw and Alpine Meadows which was just a few miles down the road so after a quick lunch the ETMM gang decided to hit both resorts in the same day. The snow and conditions were actually better at Alpine Meadows due to their snow making capabilities. Not many times you can hit two resorts in the same day, the only other two I can think of is Snowshoe & Silvercreek.

The boys took Tuesday off from skiing and did a road trip to Virginia City and Carson City to check out the old mining towns and the mint.  Virginia City has been turned into a tourist trap but you could see part of how the old west was laid out and remnants of lots of old mines were scattered around the hill sides.  For those that remember Bonanza, that was one of the main towns they visited when they went to the “big city” as they filmed that show around north Lake Tahoe. Carson City is a neat old town as well.  Baker is kind of a coin nut so we stopped into a coin shop across from the mint. He and the owner hit it off talking about stuff. He asked Baker to take a look at a coin he had in the case, if I remember it was an 1870CC mint state silver dollar with a price tag of $80,000.  I can’t remember exactly what Baker said but it was something like “holy sh!#”. I know I had never seen or held an $80,000 coin before.

We spend another day skiing at Northstar which turned out to be the best conditions in Tahoe.  California has been in a severe drought for over 2 years now and Northstar and Alpine Meadows invested in snow making equipment which has paid dividends for them.   The last days skiing were back to Northstar or Heavenly depending on your mood since we decided to skip Kirkwood due to poor snow conditions out there. We ventured into Reno on our last night and to get close to the airport for our early Saturday morning departure.  As usual the night life was good in Tahoe between the gaming and taking in shows. Some of us took in a magician show and we all did a comedy show at the Improv. Overall it was a good trip, the skiing could have been better but was much better than I expected after watching the ski reports and was better than anything we can get around here.  Would you have guessed that Sliger and Baker were martini guys? Me either but they are now after we met up with an old Crescent buddy in Reno at a Martini bar. I guess you can drink about anything and as long as it is in a martini glass it is now a martini. We did learn a few things out there, 1) “Trees Hurt” (Baker didn’t need to figure it out for himself, they had signs to tell us), 2) Sliger’s real name is “Hey Bro” and 3) Baker can do it “Rodeo style” getting onto chair lifts (I’m still not sure what that was but the Bro’s behind him knew).  Tahoe is always a fun trip.