To start off spring break Kim and I flew into Reno, where we immediately got in a rental car and left. We got into Tahoe at about 2 in the morning, and unfortunately the free camping sites Kim remembered were covered in snow and not open. We just setup camp in some KOA style place which we found out in the morning cost $30. Robbery. Cheaper than the $85 motels though.
We spent the day driving around the lake and doing a few small hikes. It was gorgeously sunny, something Seattle has been lacking. Surprise surprise. I think Emerald Bay is the prettiest area of the lake. We hiked down to the cool house on the edge of the bay, Vikingsholm. Rich people definitely have the coolest houses. We also hiked to a waterfall above Vikingsholm. Kim was fighting a cold so we checked into a time share rental that her boss had been nice enough to set us up with. We checked in and by 8 or so Kim had zonked and slept for about 12 hours.
The next day we had planned to ski but got up a little late. We drove up toward Heavenly ski resort, but didn’t want to spend $75 for a day of skiing since we were starting late and the half day price was still $60 something. Outrageous. We went to a local ski shop and they suggested we do a half day at another resort a little farther away and ski Heavenly tomorrow since a snow storm was predicted for the evening. This turned out to be great advice.
We went down to Sierra ski resort for a half day, which was a good amount of time for us to get back into the swing of skiing and snowboarding. Kim hadn’t been up on the slopes and years and it I’ve out very infrequently the last few years. The snow was a little slushy, but we still had a lot of fun and even found a few fun routes in the trees.
That night it absolutely DUMPED snow. We had two feet of fresh powder to ski in at one of the premier ski resorts in the country. It really was some of the best skiing I’ve ever seen. The mountain is huge with runs in California and Nevada. We skied almost all day on the California side since the snow stayed fluffy there longer being on the less exposed west slope. I introduced Kim to the joys of tree skiing, that is ignoring the groomed runs and making your own run between the trees in the powder. At first she had a really hard time with it. I think she just wasn’t used to moving through powder, but by the end of the day I practically had to drag her off the mountain. There were a lot of sections that had been closed the day before that were now wonderlands of amazing snow. Sometimes the new snow hid rocks and stumps that scraped up my skis and Kim’s board a little, but they were rentals so it wasn’t too big a deal :-). The morning was sunny, it blizzarded a bit in the afternoon.
By the time we were done skiing it was back to sunny, but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to get out of the Lake Tahoe area without chains. Unfortunately nobody else seemed to know if chains were required, so I bought some. They weren’t required. Oh well. I figured we’d have them in case it snowed while we were with Brendan in Yosemite later…