In
the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream. At night we
ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines. Sprung from cages out on
Highway 9, chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin’ out over the line. Baby,
this town rips the bones from your back. It’s a death trap, it's a suicide rap.
We gotta get out while were young, `cause tramps like us, baby we were Born to
Run.
-
Bruce Springsteen
The cable channel FX showed Armageddon last night, which interfered with my plan to have eight solid hours of sleep before the alarm went off at 5.30am this morning. But when Bruce Willis is drilling to the core of an asteroid to save humanity, bravely sacrificing himself in the process, you can’t help but watch, right?
So it was more like
six hours of sleep, and after an early breakfast we departed Stockton, heading
towards Lake Tahoe, via Sacramento (the state capital of California) and up
over Donner Pass, back into the Sierra Nevada Mountains – the opposite side to
where we were in Yosemite – and Northstar California, one of the handful of
world-class ski resorts that dot either the north or south shore of Lake Tahoe.
I have fond memories
of Northstar. It’s the first Tahoe resort I ever skied at, almost three years
ago to the day. On that occasion, we came through a wintry mix of snow and
sleet atop Donner Pass and down into the sunny environs of Lake Tahoe. Today,
there was no such weather interruption. The skies were clear from sunrise,
which we enjoyed from the highway – a low yellow-orange ball of searing heat –
and didn’t change all day. In fact, the weather’s meant to be clear and sunny
as long as we’re here in Tahoe.
 |
| Northstar Village at sunset |
We’re doing extraordinarily
well on the weather front so far this trip. The only day we’ve seen rain was
the first day at Knott’s Berry Farm, and that didn’t hinder us too much. The
only thing I should comment on here is the cold. It was bitter today. On the
drive in, coming through Truckee, California, we actually hit -3F. That’s
approaching -20C and is just about a low temp as far as what we’ve seen on the
trip so far. Thankfully, it warmed up before we hit the slopes, getting to
about 17F (still well below freezing) and the sun helped. I bought a balaclava for $20 at a store in the Northstar Village. A very, very solid purchase!
After today, my
memories of Northstar are even better. It’s not an exaggeration to say that we
had perfect skiing conditions today: fresh snow, blue sky, sunshine, not a
breath of wind, some groomed runs, some moguls, tree skiing, fast lifts and,
perhaps best of all, very few other people to share the mountain with. Today
was as good as skiing gets…and the forecast calls for something similar today
and tomorrow.
Runs here are awesome.
The best one we skied on – a diamond run called Burnout – was wide and steep
and fast and so much fun. You ski for a mile from top to bottom, always with an
incredible view of the surrounding mountains. It’s epically beautiful. We were
on the north side today, so our glimpses of Lake Tahoe were fleeting, but
tomorrow, at Heavenly, we’ll get much better views, because we'll actually be skiing towards it on most runs.
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| Burnout at Northstar. One mile, top to bottom |
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| Cold but sunny. The balaclava was a wise purchase! |
Taking advantage of
the accommodation given to us for a very cheap rate, we ordered pizza for
dinner from a local place called Blue Dog. It was really good – especially their
‘Hair of the Dog’ which is jalapenos, red pepper, green pepper, pepperoni and
mozzarella cheese. Beer, pizza, some football and some of my favourite people
in the world…a perfect end to a great day.
 |
| Well-earned lunchtime beer by the fire! |
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