Pavement Time

The other day Deutschbike and I went out riding. The fella was out of town so on my day off I had the luxury of pummeling myself into oblivion at my leisure. My knees, ass, and hands may beg to differ but my heart said, best road ride ever.

Better than riding around the lake even, because of the incredibly diverse scenery. Soft pedal out of camp along my own little lake, cut through picturesque neighborhoods, climb up out of Christmas Valley, a glade of the sharpest greens and most bountiful wildflowers with the tranquil Upper Truckee River running through it, over Luther Pass and down into Hope Valley where the craggy glory of the Sierras swallows me. Then a long and windy stretch through cow-town, the flats of Nevada with the Sierras on one side and the Pinenuts on the other. When I stop to eat a Pop Tart a big hawk peers down at me with disgruntlement and then moves down to the next telephone pole. Then a long, exposed climb through the sandstone canyons above Gardnerville, nothing to protect me from the sun and seemingly nothing holding the sand to the cliffs. Finally I made it to Daggett Pass and took the shortest route back to camp, through South Lake Trashhole, land of never ending road construction, and yet...generous shoulders, glorious weather, drivers who notice bikes. The final stretch was the hardest of the day, with a little baby climb up Tahoe Mountain and then the bone chattering road around the lake in all its pot-holed, pavement-rippled glory.

Not as long as my last big ride, but way harder: http://app.strava.com/activities/55419760
The ride resembles the Assault in a lot of ways. Big climbs at the start and finish, flatlands in the middle (in a different state, even!) Crazy beautiful, crazy tough, definitely want to do it again.

Meanwhile, In the Here and Now

My favorite pre-work run, out the door of the cabin:

The dusty trail, a lung-busting climb up granite ledges and switchbacks, through snowmelt and bark debris

The views emerge quickly on the ascent

To one side of Angora Ridge, lush lakefront;
to the other side, lingering skeletons of the '09 burn

I dawdle at the fire lookout every time

The fleeing storm parks itself over Desolation

In the other direction Freel and company loom above
the Meyers valley

This time of year sees more blooming than I'd expected

Fast downhill, each footfall threatened by loose surface

or manzanita bottleneck

And back home (upstairs)

Sweet digs, perfect size 

My own little nook 

New Season

Angora Peak

spring in tahoe is pretty sweet. toasty warm days bookended by the occasional chilly drizzle that sharpens and clarifies all the new greens, so different from the darker everpresent pine green. a neon dust of pollen covers every surface and the birdsong is incessant. when the warmth returns the smell of baking pine needles floats in all the sunny spots; it has already made a permanent home in my olfactory memory bank.

Hikin (it's like running, just slower)

Just two girls dreaming of the east coast

i feel at home here and all is good in the world, but i can't wait for the smell of loam and the constant shade of canopy. i want to run over root baskets and stream beds again and ride up some gravel road, clinging to the wheel of whoever is in front of me and praying that the climb will end soon. i want to sit in the bakery and greet every single person who walks through the door. i want to hug my family. (is that weird?) in ten days i'll be flying over the blue ridge with my forehead and nose smudging the window, and i can't wait to be back.

Back to Camp

I finished off the season with one last magical powder day at Kirkwood, with a group of six wonderful friends, a posse that despite its size never grew unwieldy or sluggish.

And now after a lightning fast winter, I'm settled back in at SSC, with a new cabin and a new title and, oddly, a new sense of detachment. Because this time around I have a life in town, not to mention a set schedule of forty evening hours a week, I haven't and probably won't wholeheartedly embrace the scene that is camp. It's a little bittersweet that I'll never again be a new arrival wide-eyed with wonder (like Eric, who I suspect is in heaven), but instead I can build on friendships I made last season, get to better know the full time staffers, and make some attempt to do my job well (which doesn't come as naturally to me as food service, but what doesn't kill you, etcetera).

Of course the best aspect of camp remains the same: infinite opportunity for outdoor play. The mountains and the waterfront beckon. The trails shook themselves free of snow very early this year, and Rebecca and I have been on a couple of extremely satisfying bikes rides (made all the better by several months of abstinence). On one of those days I had the quintessentially Californian experience of mountain biking and skiing in the same day. And this sunshine doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

Life In Flux

On the drive back from Utah I received two important communiques: an official job offer from SSC after a winter spent on tenterhooks, and an urgent text saying, "Our house has been foreclosed on."
Whoa.
Further conversations revealed that rather than a cause for panic, this news was an unexpected boon. Fannie Mae is permitting us to squat in the house until the end of March, our security deposit was returned posthaste, and to aid in relocation costs we will be cut a generous check on move out day. I'll be crashing at my "other house" (and living in sin for the first time in my life) until moving to camp. Meanwhile the boys bought an RV to start their new life as gypsies.

This is what it looks like when young people retire. 

Snow showers have been sparse and bookended by sixty degree glory days. I have had the chance to get in a couple good powder days at Kwood and the Heave, free snowmobiling thanks to the power of craigslist, some good road rides, and one unforgettable trip to the infamous Squaw Valley. Early in the day Tyler and I went a'hiking up to the looming Palisades. I took the easiest chute while he dropped in on the dumbest iciest chute...

...and emerged scathed. Dripping blood and ashen-faced, he somehow skied down to the clinic, where we learned he'd broken his hand and lacerated his favorite finger. He's spent the last week doped up, stitched, splinted, and not thrilled. Sports injuries are sobering stuff and this one has reaffirmed my intense fear of being laid up, antsy as hell, and unable to play.

Won't be doing that for a while.

Meanwhile work has ground nearly to a halt as the season comes to an end (how did that happen?), the house is emptying of furniture (aforementioned craigslist bartering), I can't stop watching mountain bike videos, and I'm counting down the weeks until my trip back to the south. 

Lest I Forget My Roots

It refuses to snow in South Lake so upon my return I brought the Deutschbike out of hiding, cleaned off the filth of a cross ride two months past, unearthed chamois and road shoes, and disembarked warily. Turns out, to express the most painfully obvious truism, it is just like riding a bike. For the first hour nonstop I enjoyed what could only be called a full body high. Climbed to Luther Summit and remembered that going uphill was, of course, my first love. Bombed the descent, meandered back into town. There is no finer mode of self-propulsion.

The Siren Song of Deseret

So we went to Utah because I heard they might have pretty good snow or something, forgetting that the last time I came through I almost didn't leave. It's a dangerous place, Utah. It's so easy to dismiss it because of the chokehold LDS has on every level of government, to scoff at the solemn silence of the big city on a Sunday, to be annoyed by the absurd and arbitrary rules hampering alcohol production and sale. We went to a tasting room without taps (no kegs allowed), had to purchase an entree each (no drinks without a meal), and could only have two tasters in front of us at any time. At the liquor store you can't buy "real beer" refrigerated or in six packs, and the walls are papered with morality literature.

And yet.

The Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons saw some light snowfall before we arrived but the locals bemoaned the conditions; at Snowbird, where Tyler's brother scored us cheap tickets, there's no chance of beating the powderhounds who ruthlessly track out every inch of the mountain with their fat plush skis.

And yet.

Best day of skiing yet. Ever. Words cannot express. Chasing Tyler and Ben all over a mountain that was all steeps, cliffs, trees, and all of it cloaked in deep, light snow that had me wallowing and falling and grinning. I was a better skier by the end of the day. Another day we went to Canyons, a massive Park City resort with practically none of the terrain or snow that made Snowbird so sublime. We rolled with a posse this time, having joined forces with Joh and Jamie, as well as a friend of the Nelson boys. Instead of pushing and progressing, we had a more chill day of bopping around, doing some sidecountry, ducking ropes, roasting groomers, and being generally pretty obnoxious.

Doing some light hiking with the JTs

And now on the drive home, as much as it makes me cringe to say, we've hashed out a plan to move to Utah next winter, because it's really hard driving back west without some intention of returning.

Update

I've worked at the coffee shop for a month now and have erased the wretched imprisonment of HR from my memory. I love the coffee shop. More than I expected, even. I had reservations, since we operate under the umbrella of not one but two evil empires. However, the influence of the coffee corporation is barely present, besides the monthly introduction of new cloyingly sweet drinks; Vail's sway is more obvious, between the Byzantine labor laws of California* and relentless rah-rah of the resort. All the employees have past experience in independent coffee shops so we all operate under the pretense that we still work in one, mocking people who order caramel "macchiatos" and ask for grande-sized beverages, and doling out freebies to anyone we like, corporate protocol be damned. I was expecting to serve only tourists, and while the staggering majority of our customers are out-of-towners, there is a solid and loyal contingent of locals, regulars, and year-rounders. Everyone that works in the Village takes excellent care of each other; the us-versus-them mentality is really strong here.

The tourists that pour in are the most cosmopolitan crowd I've ever seen. At least fifty percent of them are wealthy foreigners, skiers and boarders from Perth and Bern and Santiago and Lima and Seoul, decked out in the most expensive snowgear and eyewear imaginable, showing no reaction at being charged upward of four dollars for a single beverage. Everyone is stoked on the sunshine, the scenery, and the snow. Most people that come in are very friendly and not nearly as high maintenance as I had expected, although the entitled Bay brats wielding their parents' plastic can be pretty abrasive. Overall the vibe is great, the tips are generous, and I'm excited to go to work each day. What more could I ask?




*To clarify: California has very pro-employee labor laws, to the point that it's absurd. We the peons benefit, but on the other side of the desk in HR I saw how obnoxious the rules are for employers.