We’re safely home from another Tahoe ski outing, despite the fates conspiring against us.
A chickie-babe and I had been planning a trip to Tahoe, for Monday and Tuesday of this week. The basic plan was to get up at the dark o’thirty, drive up, ski all day, stay in a hotel that night, ski all day Tuesday and then come home Tuesday evening.
However, Sunday evening, I notice one of the back tired on the Passat was showing thread . Yikes! When did this start happening? Sigh, doesn’t really matter; I’m not driving up to Tahoe, potentially through snow, on a bald tire. So, first thing Monday morning, I’m at Wheel Works, waiting for them to unlock the door and take my money. They did a good job, and had the job done in 45 minutes. Still, leaving at 10:00 a is a little late for the “ski all day” plan. In fact, it’s barely enough time for doing a half-day afternoon pass.
After some discussion back and forth, we decided to head up Monday mid-day regardless. We got up there with no trouble, clear roads. We wandered Truckee a bit, had some dinner and enjoyed a relaxing night away from home.
We got up very early Tuesday morning, stretched out and suited up for a day on the slopes at Boreal. It was colder than the last ski trip, and incredibly foggy. It was a complete white-out at the top of the lift. After careful triple-checking of the maps and searching for the fog-obscured signs, we finally got our bearings and started getting comfortable with the trails. We made five runs before it was even 10!
As the day progressed, the fog lingered, and if anything, got more intense. And the lightly falling snow got a little more serious. And more. And more. Take a look at the top of this picture and notice the heavy cloud cover. Now imagine skiing in that fog at the top of the mountain.
Around 3 in the afternoon, we had made three runs in a row with snow blowing so hard it was painful on the tiny bit of exposed face we were showing, and visibility was correspondingly worse. And because we couldn’t see, we were slowing down, which meant no speed to get us through the flats of the trail. Poling on downhill skis gets real old real fast.
So, we were pretty close to the “not having fun anymore” line, and then I started noticing the snow was sticking on the roads, and I really didn’t want to be putting on chains for the drive home. That settled that. Equipment returned, and we were on the road. As we came down the mountain, snow turned to rain, which pelted us fairly hard all the way home.
But, we made it just fine. The final tally; no broken bones, no speeding tickets, no sunburn, lots of green runs, some scattered blue runs, and a great time overall.