Here’s some pics from our weekend snowboarding trip to Tahoe. We went to Kirkwood on Saturday and then hit Heavenly for the first time on Sunday. The weather was absolutely beautiful as you can see from the photo above.

My dilapidated knee held up much better than I thought it would. In fact, it actually felt stronger after the trip than before. Hopefully that means it’s well on its way to a full recovery.

I decided to join Mike for a weekend snowboarding trip to Tahoe. Judy wasn’t quite in the mood to go on such a last-minute trip (the notion of going didn’t cross my mind until late Friday afternoon), and since several of Mike’s buddies flaked, it ended up just being Mike and myself.

We stayed at Mike’s timeshare in the Tahoe area and hit Sierra at Tahoe the first day. It was my first time there and I wasn’t too impressed as the resort is quite small with not a lot of varied terrain. My favorite part of the resort was one of the parks which had perfectly sized (for me) jumps and boxes, but I only got two runs through it before they closed it off for some kind of class.

The next day, we hit Northstar which I liked much better than Sierra. Conditions were much improved as well and we were able to find quite a few stashes of good powder in the trees. We were having loads of fun until about mid afternoon when I took a jump slightly off balance and somehow hyper-extended my leg/knee on the landing. I tried doing another run, but quickly realized that the injury was serious enough that I couldn’t finish out the day. I headed back down early while Mike did a few more runs.

At first, my knee didn’t feel too bad (not good for sure, but not that bad), but I did have a noticeable limp. As time passed and my body cooled down during the drive back, things really stiffened up and by the time we got home, I had a seriously pronounced limp. Hopefully I can get over this soon. Oh well, I guess that’s what I get for going snowboarding without Judy.

I only took a small handful of pics.

Some photos and vids from our first trip to Steamboat Springs.

Latte’s been having some health problems recently so we decided not to take any far-away snowboarding trips this year. She gets really stressed out when we leave her for more than a couple of days, and in her current state, such a stressful situation might very well do her in. Now that she’s on steroids, she’s doing much better so we decided to do a local trip to Tahoe and bring her along.

We actually headed up to Tahoe on Sunday in the middle of a big storm. “Awesome,” we thought, “fresh powder!” Just 35 miles from Truckee, the highway patrol closed the roads and turned everybody around, not because there was too much snow, but because visibility was really poor. Ordinarily, we would have just found a hotel nearby and just headed up the next morning. We had Latte with us though, so we would have to find a place that allowed dogs which can be tough. We had dinner with the hopes that things would clear up, but they didn’t. The condo we had booked was willing to cancel our reservation without any charges and so we just decided to head back home and perhaps try to come back again later in the week.

We headed up again on Wed night, this time with perfect weather. The storm we had driven in just a few days ago had left a lot of snow, but it warmed up quite a bit in the ensuing days and so there was nary a sign of any powder. No big deal actually since I probably wouldn’t have thought much about fresh Tahoe powder anyway being the powder snob that I am. We hit Squaw the first day and Northstar the next day. Conditions were spring-like with nice, warm weather and blue skies. Not epic conditions for a powder hound, but still lots of fun. Certainly better than staring at a monitor in a cubicle.

Unfortunately, Latte didn’t do as well as we would have liked in the condo. When we came back from Squaw the first day, we heaped praise on her because it looked like she had behaved herself. It wasn’t until a half hour or so later that we realized that our celebration was premature. While I was putting on my jeans, I noticed that they were a bit wet. At first, I thought it was just that my underwear was wet from snowboarding that day, but quickly realized that Latte had peed on my jeans! Damn dog!

The good thing was that my jeans (and one of my shirts that was also laying on the ground) pretty much absorbed all her pee and so very little got onto the carpet. Perhaps Latte peed on my clothes because she was smart enough to know it would absorb it. Or maybe she was trying to tell me something? Hmmm…

The original plan was to hit Alpine Meadows on Sat before heading home. On that morning, however, Judy was feeling really sore in her legs and since I just never got into the snowboarding mood this season (I just want to climb!), we both decided to head home a little earlier. I had pre-purchased our lift tickets through REI, but luckily, we were able to sell them to the first people we approached.

So that was our first, and likely only, snowboarding trip this season. I did manage a few shots during the trip, most of which are of Latte.

This year, Judy and I decided to get a few more days of Utah boarding in by driving out and spending a week there. Unfortunately, this was probably one of the driest seasons in memory with unseasonably warm weather and a dearth of snow. With our lodging pre-paid, and with Dave and Patty having already booked their flights, the trip was on despite of the conditions.

We thought it would be fun to bring the Latte Dog along so that’s what we did. It was the first time that Latte has ventured past the California state line. We were also hoping that it would be the first time that she would be exposed to snow, but that was not to be.

Judy had found a great deal through Craigslist for a condo near Salt Lake City. It was a nice, cozy place that allowed pets for only $70 a night! That it also had screaming fast fiber optic internet was also a big plus. We hit Brighton our first day (Monday) there (where we got up close and personal with a porcupine!), took a rest day the second day and visited the Park City downtown, and then hit Snowbird on Wednesday. Since there was no fresh powder to be found, I spent the first half of the day at Snowbird trying my hand at skiing.

Thursday was a non-ski day as well – Judy worked out at a nearby gym while I went climbing at The Front, a local climbing gym. Later that day, we met up with Patty and Dave in their cool Murano rental. After dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, we headed to the lodge. There was a lot of new construction on the 15 and we ended up getting off the freeway one or two exits too soon. Instead of getting back on the freeway, we decided to have our Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS direct us. Although it got us to where we wanted to go, it took us through downtown Ogden which is probably not the quickest route.

Moose Hollow used to allow pets, but no more, likely due to a recent management change. We were originally going to shack Latte up at Camp Bark A Lot, but then decided to take a chance and sneak Latte into our condo. Although having to go incognito when Latte needed to do her business was somewhat of a pain, Latte behaved well (as expected) and things went without a hitch.

We went to Powder Mountain on Friday and Snowbasin on Saturday. There was no powder, even in our secret stash areas, so we mainly stayed on the groomers. Dave and I did a few runs through the terrain parks where I not-so-graciously provided some entertaining video footage. Dave cooked his yummy pasta (this time, due to the reduced number of people, without pepperoni and substituting ground buffalo for ground beef – it was much healthier and just as tasty!) the first night and stir-fried noodles the second night. The new management at Moose Hollow, likely in a cost-cutting move, decided to no longer provide complimentary Moose Tracks ice cream so we had to go out and buy our own.

It’s always a great time to get away from cubicle hell and be out in nature with friends so although the snow left much to be desired, it was nevertheless a great trip. And the lack of powder also made for a much more relaxing trip (we were good if we were on the slopes by 10:30!), which was actually really nice. Here are the pics and vids.

Damages:

 664.10   Lodging 166.03 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)
  47.54   Groceries 15.85 pp (Dave, Patty, Roger)
 184.00   Powder Mtn lift tix 46 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)
 204.00   Snowbasin lift tix 51 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)
  26.72   Groceries 6.68 pp (Dave, Judy, Patty, Roger)

 285.56   Dave     PAID
 269.71   Judy     PAID
 285.56   Patty    PAID
 285.56   Roger    PAID

Judy and I decided to do a last minute trip to Utah for one last weekend of snowboarding for the season. Since we always go to Powder Mountain and Snowbasin, we decided to stay in Salt Lake City this time and try out some new resorts. The plan was to fly in Friday night, hit The Canyons on Saturday, go to either Solitude or Brighton on Sunday, and then fly back home Sunday night.

Saturday turned out to be unseasonally warm – it hit 70F in Salt Lake and was somewhere in the 50s on the mountain. Definitely spring-skiing conditions. The Canyons resort is pretty cool. From the main parking lot, you take a lift to the base of the mountain, going over a bunch of multi-million dollar condos and townhouses.

The resort itself is huge! We started out on the right side (looking up the mountain) and actually didn’t even make it to the far left side. This was partly because I found some good-sized jumps in one of the parks and wanted to take a bunch of runs through it.

For dinner, we ate at Sage’s Cafe, the same vegan restaurant that we had hit last time we were here, and then returned to our cheap hotel (The Microtel). The next morning, we were both feeling really tired. Whether we were just getting old, not in very good shape, or whatever, we decided to not go riding and just try to catch an earlier flight home. We ate breakfast again at Sage’s Cafe; the breakfast there is actually not very good – it’s better to stick with the lunch/dinner food. Since we had some time to kill before our changed flight, we drove to do some shopping at the outlet stores near The Canyons that we had spotted the other day.

Travel all the way to Utah for a single day of riding?!! Are we lame or what?!! Going to The Canyons turned out to be a really, really expensive endeavor, but hey, that’s one of the many advantages of being a DINK. Short trip, but we did manage to snap some pics and vids.

This year’s Powder Mountain trip was planned a bit late, primarily because Judy and I have been so busy. Between moving to Palo Alto and both of us being swamped at work, we didn’t really even start thinking about the trip until mid-January or so. After a bit of schedule coordination with the group (President’s Day weekend ended up working best for everyone) and an exhaustive search for reasonably priced airfare (the relatively late reservations combined with a holiday weekend made it hard to find airfare that wasn’t outrageously priced), we were all set to go.

Judy and I arrived in Salt Lake at around 4 PM on Friday. Brian was already at the lodge after having driven from Colorado while Bob, Jen, Dave, and Patty weren’t due to arrive until around 10 PM. We only rented one rental car so Judy and I had some time to kill before we could pick up the rest of the group.

Last year, we had rented a Suburban which fairly comfortably accommodated 7 people plus gear. Although I had rented a Suburban again this year, we were given an Expedition which we quickly discovered to be a good deal smaller than a Suburban. Judy and I had planned to kill time in SLC until the rest of the group arrived, but considering the small size of the Expedition, we thought it might be a better idea to head to the lodge, drop off our gear, and then head back to SLC. We started doing that but quickly got mired in bumper to bumper traffic. I guess even Utah has traffic these days. Not wanting to waste a bunch of time in traffic, we decided just to head back towards SLC.

We did some grocery shopping at the SLC Wild Oats (same company as Henry’s) where Judy loaded up on some fresh organic fruits and veggies which would comprise her dinner for the next two nights. For dinner, we hit Sages, a cute little vegan restaurant in SLC. I had the vegan Philly cheese steak sandwich which despite not tasting like the real thing, was pretty good nonetheless.

After dinner we hit a bookstore to kill the remaining time. I started perusing Stephen Hawkins “A Brief History of Time“. It was a fascinating read, but I soon realized that I was thinking too hard. I had been working quite a bit in recent weeks and was pretty much mentally exhausted. I just didn’t want to have to work my brain too much! I put it down, but the book peaked my interest so I’ll probably try to check it out from the library sometime.

Before long, it was time to pick up the rest of the gang. The SLC airport has a cool temporary parking area where you park your car in front of some large screens. These screens display flight info and let you know when you should pull out and pick up whomever it is you’re picking up.

It took a bit of work, but we were able to cram everything into the Expedition and were soon on our way. It was pretty late and we were afraid that the grocery stores in Ogden might be closed before we got there so we stopped at a Smith’s not far from the airport to get groceries.

It was near midnight by the time we got to the lodge. The particular unit we were staying in this time was kind of unique in that it had a big entertainment room upstairs, complete with a big-screen TV. We found out the next day that the big screen for some reason wasn’t able to display the signal from the Dish Network system very well, and we never got around to watching a DVD movie on it.

Brian decided to stay at the lodge to get some work done the next day. The rest of us headed to Snowbasin. It was fr…fr…frigid that morning! The external temperature gauge in the Expedition showed 7F and it dropped to 1F on our way up the mountain!

Being a holiday weekend, it was more crowded than we were accustomed since we usually come the weekend before. The main parking lot was actually filled and we had to park in the overflow area. The snow was decent and we were able to find some fresh powder, especially towards the latter part of the day when we found some nice fluff by hiking up to “Mini Lightning Ridge”, our nickname for the Powderhound Bowl.

That evening, Dave cooked his signature pasta, and cooked a bit too much. Of course, I had documented this previously, but we obviously didn’t read things closely enough. 3 lb of pasta and 2 jars of sauce was perfect for 8 people, but this time we only had 6 people (Judy ate her own dinner). Oh well, lesson learned. We’ll get it right one of these days!

We watched the Winter Olympics that evening and perused a bunch of cool internet videos on Bobert’s laptop including Matrix Style Ping Pong (really cool!), a Nike advertisement of an impossibly cool soccer sequence (gotta be fake but still cool), and The Chinese Backstreet Boys (I thought this was the lamest thing when I first saw it but it has grown on me somewhat and I now find it amusing). Afterwards, I mercilessly destroyed Patty in the highly anticipated Ultimate Tetris Face-Off, brutally exposing her for the Tetris neophyte that she is.

It snowed a few inches that evening. We hit Powder Mountain the next day and were able to make some fresh tracks coming down the Timberline lift and were able to find nice powder after taking the tow-rope. About halfway through the day, the resort suffered a power outage and had to be shut down for the rest of the day. This actually worked out well for us because we got a good day in and they handed out free half-day vouchers.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty lazy and consisted mostly of watching a Cirque du Soleil DVD that Dave had brought. We were so lazy that we didn’t even want to go upstairs to watch it on the big screen TV! Dave cooked a yummy beef and veggie stir fry. We ended up with way too much rice because Dave’s eyes turned out to be much bigger than his stomach. While at the grocery store, we had decided to get the 3 lb rice bag instead of a smaller size mainly because Dave confidently asserted, “Dude, I’ll eat half of that bag by myself.” Looks like another lesson learned for future trips.

We used our free half-day vouchers at Powder Mountain the next day. It was another great day of riding with plenty of good powder on the far left side of the mountain.

I’ve become a valued repeat customer at Moose Hollow since I’ve been booking a lodge there at least once a season for the past several years. The people there recognize my name whenever I call to make reservations. In fact, they gave me a 10% discount on lodging for this trip because they love me so much. Unfortunately, my name is now associated with the mug of one infamous Brian Beattie because Brian pretended he was me when he picked up the keys on Friday. Despite this, Judy was able to coax the Moose Hollow people into allowing us a late check out by masquerading as my wife. Our 4 PM check-out time was great because it allowed us to come back to the lodge, change, and pack up at a leisurely pace. It also allowed us to finish the bulk of the remaining food. Patty had used the leftover rice to make fried rice that morning and we polished the rest of it off that afternoon.

All in all, a great trip, although I was kind of bummed because I really wanted to take a few runs through the Snowbasin park. This park was where my favorite jump was and I wanted to work on my jumps a bit. Unfortunately, we just ran out of time. Oh well. The funny thing is that before this trip, I wasn’t all that excited about going snowboarding, but now, I’ve kind of got the bug again. Maybe Judy and I will be taking a trip to Tahoe sometime soon…

There were a few lessons learned this trip:

• 3 lb of pasta and 2 jars of sauce is perfect for 8 people. For 6 people? I’m thinking 2.5 lb (or just 2 lb if they don’t sell 0.5 lb bags) of pasta and 2 jars of sauce.
• 3 lb of rice for 6 people is way too much unless the rest will be eaten at another meal. I’m thinking 2 lb of rice is good for 6 people.
• We should keep inviting Bob because he provides internet access.

Here are the damages:

Lodging (7 each)                    $ 822.00 ($117.43 pp)
Expedition (6 each - no Brian)      $ 675.80 ($112.63 pp)
Gas (6 each - no Brian)             $  46.27 ($  7.71 pp)
Lift Tix - Snow Basin
(6 each - no Brian)                 $ 294.00 ($ 49.00 pp)
Lift Tix - Powder Mountain
(7 each)                            $ 287.00 ($ 41.00 pp)
Groceries (6 each, no Judy))        $  63.15 ($ 10.53 pp)
TOTALS                              $2188.22

Bob     $ 338.30     PAID
Brian   $ 168.96     PAID
Dave    $ 338.30     PAID
Patty   $ 338.30     PAID
Jen     $ 338.30     PAID
Judy    $ 327.77     PAID
Roger   $ 338.30     PAID
TOTAL   $2188.23

Of course last not but least, here’s the pics and vids. One of the reasons it took so long for me to get these online is that I was figuring out a way to make the videos smaller in filesize. I took the videos at 640X480 resolution and some of the files were pushing 20MB! That would have taken eons to download over my pathetic DSL line. Fortunately, I discovered Quicktime Pro which does an absolutely amazing job of compression while retaining quality. For the geeks out there, I’ll be posting a follow-up entry on why Quicktime totally rocks.

I decided to check out the snowboarding at Sugar Bowl. Judy had already shelved her snowboard for the season and also didn’t want to take a day off so it would be a solo trip for me. The drive was around three hours or so, but it was much better than the Kirkwood drive because it had very little twisty, turny mountain driving. And the view as you approach the resort is absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to snap a shot but I had unfortunately left my camera at the back of the vehicle.

It had just snowed about two days ago so I was hoping that I could find some good powder. I was also hoping that the crowds would be minimal since no other company should be having a holiday today. Neither would be the case. The last two days had been pretty warm so any good snow, if it wasn’t already all tracked up, was non-existant (of course, this being my first time at the resort, it was entirely possible that I just didn’t know where to look for the good stuff). And I found out that this Sunday is Easter so a lot of people were at the resort. Oh well.

Since the snow wasn’t great, I decided to hone my air skills in the park. During one of my lifts up the park, I rode up with someone who looked a lot like Shaun White, the professional snow boarder. The tip off was the big red hair. It was a four-person lift and the person I thought was Shaun White sat at the far right while I sat at the far left. The other two people were friends of the red-head and they were talking about some pretty crazy stuff – how one of their friends landed on a rail and became paralyzed and how another broke his leg and couldn’t snowboard again.

During the ride up, I merely thought this guy looked like Shaun White. I thought the chances that it really was him were pretty slim. Then I saw him ride the park. He was doing some pretty insane tricks! I’m not up with all the snowboard lingo, but I know that this guy was pretty damn good. I’m pretty sure it was Shaun White so it’s pretty cool that I rode up a lift with him!

Since it was just me, I didn’t take too many pictures. In fact, I took only one.

We’ve been wanting to go on a heli-trip for some time now. It’s been one of those things that’s on our “life’s list of things to do”, but there has always been a tendency to push it off. Well, thanks mainly to Judy, it became a reality this season.

Judy, Patty, Brian, and I signed up with Diamond Peaks Adventures, an Ogden, UT based heli-skiing outfit. They’re based out of the Hidden Lake Lodge at the top of the Hidden Lake lift at Powder Mountain. The helicopter lands and picks you up at the parking lot right outside the lodge.

As we found out during our trip to Powder Mountain a few weeks ago, Utah was experiencing a pretty dry year, and unfortunately for us, there were no major snowstorms since our last trip. The hillsides along the road leading up to the Moose Hollow lodge were even more lacking of snow than last time. Our hope was that the helicopter would be able to take us to some remaining powder areas.

We arrived at the Hidden Lake Lodge at 9:30 AM, but ended up not taking off until well past 11 AM. Safety is high on the mind of this heli-skiing outfit, and they won’t allow the helicopters to take off until the morning fog has receded enough to ensure good visibility. As we waited for the fog to clear, we chatted with the guides as well as the owners of Diamond Peaks. They were all really nice, down-to-earth people and we had a good time talking with them.

The fog finally cleared and the helicopter was given clearance to come and land in the Hidden Lake parking lot. We were given a quick course on things: instructions on how to approach the copter, what positions to be in as the copter landed, how to board and unboard, etc. Most of it was pretty much common sense stuff and we were soon ready to go.

Outside of our immediate group, our group consisted of three others. The helicopter could only fit a maximum of 5 people at a time including the pilot so the pilot would have to shuttle smaller groups of us to the top. This didn’t take very long and soon our whole group was at the top of a ridge and ready to go down our first run.

It’s amazing how accurate the pilot is at landing those things. Everytime a helicopter lands, it packs down the snow creating a more stable foundation. The pilot therefore tries to land in the same place everytime, and that’s exactly what he does. His precision in landing the copter was literally about +/- 6 inches. We know this because we saw it first hand! As you wait for the helicopter to pick you up, you are supposed to kneel down about a foot or two from the previous landing tracks. That’s pretty damn close! But without fail, the pilot was able to land the helicopter in pretty much the exact same place, which is a good thing because if he didn’t, we probably would have gotten crushed!

Unfortunately, even a helicopter can’t take you to good snow if that good snow doesn’t exist. It simply had not snowed enough this year and had been too warm. The snow we rode was “corn snow” and although we made a lot of fresh tracks, it wasn’t quite the pristine Utah powder that we had hoped for.

Overall, I’ve got mixed feelings about our heli-skiing experience. Obviously, things would have been much better if the snow was good. But even then, the runs didn’t quite meet my expectations. I had envisioned really long runs, at the end of which your thighs would be burning. I expected big, wide bowls of powder. Our runs were not like these at all. They were not particularly long, and even had the snow been good, I’m not sure that it would have been much better than some of the resort runs we can find at Powder Mountain or Snowbasin. We paid about $500 or so and got 6 runs each so that’s about $80-$90/run. Was it worth it? I’m not sure. It was undoubtedly a very fun and unique experience. I’m just not sure it was worth the money.

We hit Snowbasin the day after our heli trip. The snow had deteriorated from last time, so we spent some time in the park. There’s some good movie clips of me as well as some, well, not so good clips. Be sure to check out my instructional video on how not to do a rail slide.

On our last day, we hit Powder Mountain. After Patty and Judy decided to retire, Brian and I decided to do some trekking to see if we could find some good snow. We hiked quite a ways, and were rewarded with some pretty good powder. It was surprising how good the snow was considering how warm it had been lately, but we were happy to ride it. It was a great way to end the trip.

Check out the pics and movies.

This was our first trip of the season to our favorite resort Powder Mountain. While California is having a great season snow-wise, Utah is unfortunately having a pretty dry one. Driving up to the resort, we are accustomed to having the mountain banks on the sides of the road covered with white snow. This trip, however, much of it was dirt.

Despite the conditions, we were still able to find plenty of good snow on our first day there. This was quite surprising and is a testament to how good Utah really is. During our second night there, we got lucky as a light snow made for some really nice conditions the next day.

A good time was had by all and here’s the pics to prove it.