Tahoe 2012

                We pulled it off, meeting for these instant days, the first since I’ve returned from Peace Corps service in Belize.

                My son and his wife, come from New York City, my daughter and her love up from Los Angeles, Tracy and I in from Florida.  We landed in San Francisco, and a friend from Peace Corps drove 2 ½ hours from near Sacramento to pick us up at the airport.  Then drove the 2 ½ hours back and gave us a place to stay until morning, and gave us their truck to drive on up into Tahoe.  I once heard ‘grace’ defined as an undeserved gift.  Clint and Kathy fit that definition to a tee for Tracy and I.  Clint had knee surgery about a week before we arrived.  No problem, he said.  It was his left; he could manage driving easily with his right. 

                So we drove from the southwest on Highway 50 into the visually stunning bowl of Lake Tahoe in Clint’s Ford one-ton diesel 6-man pickup.  I’ve never been here before.  Tahoe envelopes the liquid border between California and Nevada just where the vertical line takes a 45-degree kink to the east.  It’s a HUGE lake, the second deepest in the US, at an elevation of 6,200 feet, surrounded by majestic peaks.  Scattered about on those slopes are a dozen or more ski areas, many of which would seem enormous in any other setting, including Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics.

                Last year at this time, seven feet of snow blanketed Tahoe.  This year, not so much.  As a matter of fact, the only snow here this year is man-made.  We skied Heavenly, and had a great time.  Somehow they managed to give us a two-foot base to ski select runs by pumping water from the lake and spraying it into the air at the same time blowing high pressure air into the water droplets to create snow.  Some five million gallons a day, according to one local.  I’ve skied better snow, but any day skiing is better than the best day working.

                We all took some falls, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.  The sun was out, we had enough snow to slide crazily down a mountain, and we were together as family.  I wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.  It was the first time I’d ever been skiing where I could ski one day, and go on a six or seven mile hike the next, through a sugar pine forest devoid of snow.  Which also introduced Tracy to a German family day of rest.  A hike in the mountains.  She mentioned that it would probably have been more restful to just go ahead and ski, and as we were hiking at about seven or eight thousand feet, I had to agree she had a point.  There isn’t much air in the air at that altitude.

                It has been a great way to ring in the East Coast New Year.  We were way too tired to make it to our own time zone midnight. 

                As we rode the lifts and mingled with the other skiers, the prevailing attitude was one of recreation, with an emphasis on the root of the word, to re-create.  Make new.  Enjoy life and the moment.  There were a few sourpusses complaining about the lack of snow, the hundreds of acres of trails with only rocks, boulders and fallen trees visible, other than the occasional dropped glove or pole or ski, 40 to 50 feet below our speeding chairs.  But most everyone else was of good cheer, accepting of the reality that no one can predict the weather. 

                It is a long way from the poverty of Belize, this ski resort.  How I am here, able to enjoy this extravagant luxury is as much a mystery to me as it is a delight.  But I do not forget that it is only grace that brought me to this place, and that in this case, I am one of the one percenters, enjoying snow that would not be here but for dreams and technology and truckloads of money.

                Thanks to the dreamers; a nod of recognition to the truckloads of money.

Comments

[Fort Colorado]

Ahh, poor Tracy being forced to hike along with those Highland raised Germans from Nebraska. Bet sore muscles were had by all, but sounds like a beautiful trip.

[Jim]

You went to a cold location?

[Fort]

Compared to? Say, Nebraska or Florida? Confused? Guess we gotta stay tuned.

[Hovard]

Thank !I really love to read this post