A New Year's Vacation

A New Year Vacation

We spent a glorious week up at the snow. We saw more snow than sun and in fact it dumped over 4 feet of the white stuff while we were there with temperatures dropping to 8 degrees overnight. A great recipe for horrible driving but the perfect recipe for great skiing. Despite years of ski trips to Lake Tahoe we experienced an unusual number of firsts this year.

A traffic jam caused by a traffic light that was filled with snow preventing drivers from seeing if the red, yellow or green light was lit.
While skiing at Squaw our lift stopped. A bit unusual for an advanced skier express lift, but a relatively common occurrence. But then we slowly figured out that ALL the lifts on the mountain had stopped at the same time. The mountain was effectively frozen in time suffering a power surge that cut power to the whole mountain. Generators kicked in and our lift quickly came back to life but the older lifts took a bit longer.
There were no lift lines! I've always avoided skiing during the holidays because of the crowds. Squaw Valley did an excellent job of moving people and I think I had one 5 minute line and the norm was a minute or two. I remember the days of my youth with 15-30 minute lines.
While it was blizzarding I drove by a guy wearing a kilt with very blue legs.
I've been skiing for 42 years and I declared Wednesday as the single worst weather I have ever skied in. Sure there was the 20 below temperatures in Colorado one year and a few days of skiing in the Southern California rain, but this was the first time I couldn't see my boots because the snow was coming down so hard combined with horizontal wind! That said, I got my money's worth booking my minimum of ten runs before returning to the warmth.

We had the pleasure of brother Ken's family along with my Mom and I had the pleasure of getting to teach my nephew Devin master his pizza and French fries on the big hill.

Scott, Kevin, Devin, Maya & Caly

Linda with Grandkids

Brother Ken

Greg & Devin

Maya & Eve

Kevin & Linda

Maya, Devin & Stacy

January 2, 2011