March Madness

Carson and Maggie armed and dangerous

Madness not of the round orange bouncy kind, but of the snowy kind!

We took another trip up to the Sierra this past weekend, and it turned into a bit of an adventure! Note to self: when there are tornado warnings at the office, don't try to get in the car and drive to Tahoe! We left at noon on Friday to "beat the storm and the traffic" - yeah right. We drove in the pouring rain the whole way, getting a flat tire in the process, only to hear that a major accident further up in the mountains in the snowstorm had closed the interstate. So we stopped for dinner, bought a new tire, and went clothes shopping with the kids to kill time down in the valley while the accident was cleared. It wasn't, so we ended up staying in a hotel in Roseville, along with hundreds of other wannabe skiers, and drove up Saturday morning...and got stuck in the snowstorm traffic anyway.

Finally, 24 hours after leaving home, we arrived at Alpine Meadows where we were to meet some other friends. They ended up way behind us so we skied just the four of us in the blizzard - at one point the wind at the top of the Roundhouse chair blew so hard Maggie started skiing backwards! I had to reach out and grab her.  It was stormy. Maggie and Annett lasted a couple of hours then went into the lodge, but Carson and I skied till the lifts closed, having a great time discovering his first black run, Hot Wheels Gully. He was very proud of himself!

Carson playing Uno Attack with Liz and Malik

The friends we met at Alpine invited us to crash at their condo, since one of the families they were supposed to be with decided to abandon the whole shindig, so the kids had a great time playing with friends - it was a nice bonus!










We also had a nice charcoal-grilled tri-tip for dinner (our friend Doug has a thing for barbecuing in the snow!) and a pancake breakfast the next morning.

Carson, Liz, and Malik in the lift line of 10 people

Overnight Saturday to Sunday, another couple of feet of snow fell, and Alpine and Squaw both announced they were closed for the day due to the storm. OK, well at least we can still drive home - not! I-80 closed again, this time due to whiteout conditions. Great, let's find a ski area that's open - ah, Homewood is nearby, and they had a $25 lift ticket special. So we all piled in the cars and spent the day there. Maggie decided she didn't want to ski, but the rest of us went out (Annett joined us later) into the blizzard.

Our friends Debbie and Doug behind us on the chair!

It was not nearly as windy as at Alpine but boy was it dumping all day!

Annett summed it up beautifully:

 

 Carson and I closed down the place again on Sunday, but by the end of the day the road back to our condo was closed due to an avalanche! We'll never get out of here, we thought - weather forecast for 15 more FEET of snow by the end of the week...well, we actually did get out. On Sunday afternoon I-80 re-opened, the CA rt 89 avalanche was cleared, and we quickly joined the traffic jam through the chain control and returned back home sweet home by midnight. Luckily the kids didn't have school on Monday so all's well that ends well. But we'll probably avoid Tahoe in a blizzard in the future if at all possible!

Carson is busily drawing his own imaginary trail maps and can't wait for our next trip up...I am thinking more about getting the veggie garden started!

Snowy Sierra Sport

Hi all, 

We have had a great time in the snow the past few weeks, after a cold snowy Christmas we had a warm January, and now winter came back with a vengeance in February! Kirkwood had 14 (that's fourteen!) feet of snow in one week! Then last weekend we headed to Bear Valley for four days and stayed at a friend's ski house with our friends the Players.

Kirkwood

We took a day while visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Sutter Creek to visit Kirkwood on a beautiful Sunday. As we approached Silver Lake, you can see the walls of snow are already higher than the cars. Here is a picture from last weekend at Carson Spur at 7800 feet!

 Mary Beth joined us for the day.

 The sun was warm and the snow powdery!

 So powdery that Mary Beth bit it and sank down quite a bit into the poofiness a few times.

 Mary Beth and Maggie on the lift, soaring through the snow-covered trees.















Bear Valley

 Mama and Maggie riding the lift up from the base lodge. Thursday was partly sunny, Friday was stormy so we stayed home and built a sledding run and snow cave, Saturday was cold and beautiful, and Sunday was warmer and beautiful. We stayed near Arnold at about 5000 feet, but the snow was amazing!

 The girls enjoyed the hot tub - note the icicles they were slurping!

 Here is the back of the house from the "top" of the sledding run.

 Here Maggie and I are careening down the slope!

 Maggie and Tessa in the snow cave. That's the top of  a tree popping through the side wall...

 Sam and Nicole ready to make their run!












The kids enjoyed sitting in front of the fire playing games.

Saturday was an amazing powder day, clear blue skies and about three feet of soft light powder in Grizzly Bowl. Whoops of joy floating down the open slopes.









Here's a video recap...

We have one more ski weekend planned in March, then it's baseball season! We'll be heading up to north Tahoe to ski at Northstar and hopefully enjoy our last few days of skiing for the season. Maggie and Carson are both skiing the intermediate runs now, so they have progressed and I think still enjoy it!

Ski heil und auf Wiedersehen!!