South Lake Tahoe - week 2

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Wednesday – Tuesday, 14-20 February

Dale arrived on Valentine’s day and we’ve had great skiing all week. On Sabbath we went to church and enjoyed community with the locals over lunch. We explored the lake foreshore and inducted Dale into the Taco Bell tradition.

On Sunday, we drove around to Emerald Bay, which is most notable for it’s Scandinavian style castle, Vikingsholm, overlooking a cute little bay. Unfortunately the crowds of Presidents Day long weekend also thought it would be a good idea and it was a nightmare trying to find parking. The drive from South Lake Tahoe around to Emerald Bay is quite stunning. We took a side road and did a quick walk to Fallen Leaf Lake, whilst it was lightly snowing. The wind was absolutely howling as the snow storm bore down on the lake. After the walk we made a beeline for Edgewood Resort, which is the flashiest hotel in South Lake Tahoe (although it’s in Nevada). Locals say they have the best hot chocolates in town but compared to Australia, it was just OK. Nothing to write home about and certainly nothing on Max Brenner or Lindt Café. The hotel is very beautiful though.

We received some good falls Sunday afternoon right through to Monday morning. Unfortunately, Dwayne fell over whilst walking with his skies first thing Monday and unknowingly gouged a piece of skin from his thumb. It takes a particular skill set to break skin inside a padded glove! He couldn’t get his hands warm after 3 runs, so we went to the lodge for some heat and discovered the skin flap and thumb soaked in blood. We think the injury occurred because of the coldest temp we’ve encountered thus far (-13C). Anyway, he sat in the lodge for over an hour waiting for it to stop bleeding whilst Dale and I went up the mountain to get band aids from Ski Patrol. Since his gloves needed a wash and his hand couldn’t hold a pole, he went home for the day whilst Dale and I continued on. It also meant we needed to buy him a new pair of gloves, as the bloody ones will take several days to dry.

The 8 inches of overnight snow meant Dale and I could spend time exploring the powder in the trees. We came, we skied, we conquered! So much fun.



On Tuesday we hit Kirkwood, which had 13 inches of new snow in the same storm. We showed Dale the gnarly steep runs and then went to ungroomed blacks looking for powder. We found it in the Sunrise bowl and spent an hour there playing with the frothy stuff. Overall another great, albeit cold, day on the slopes.

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Comments

[Lueen]

Great views
Glad u r having a good time skiing. Sorry Dwayne about sore thumb....mine's been a bit sore too as grated a bit off! Enjoying reading about your adventures. Love Lueen