"We advise you that you need to go enjoy a snow storm in the mountains..." -Grant and Robin's collective consciences on the subject of dealing with 'lack of wintry weather depression'
December 27-30, 2004 *Trip to Lake Tahoe* CA’s escape to real weather
(Sunday) Last week, Grant and I decided to get out of Berkeley for a few days. The mundane weather pattern of the bay area in conjunction with the shortness of the days has almost driven me mad. Except for 2 major rain storms, for the last 2 months, the temperatures have ranged from 50 to 60 and the sky has been clear with less than usual fog in the Golden Gate. The only things that have changed are the sunrise and sunset times. Depressing. It didn’t feel like winter. It didn’t even feel like Christmas was coming. It was weird and wrong and it was causing me emotional distress. When Grant and I told everyone that we were moving to California, most people said, “I bet you’re glad that there won’t be any snow.” My answer was always, “I’m glad that I will not have to drive in it.” However, there was never any total gladness in my thoughts of leaving the state of my youth. I honestly love Michigan. I love being so close to so many fresh water lakes, especially the big ones that start with the word Lake. I love that there are seasons, my favorite being Fall. I love that you have big cities when you want them (Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Traverse City) and quiet retreats not too far away (Kensington Metro Park, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pictured Rocks, Manistee River Trail). I love that I know all of the major expressways in Lower Peninsula (I grew up near the cross of I-96 and US 23 and then got my first teaching job near the cross of I-69 and I-75). I love that you could drive fast on straight roads through endless farm fields. I love that most Michigan drivers can drive- in any weather condition. I love the look people give me here when they know that they will never be able to point their hand and tell me where they grew up.
Obviously, we did not make plans for a trip back to Michigan or else some of you would be seeing us right now. So what is the next best thing that we found on such short notice? Lake Tahoe. Tucked in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and on the border between California and Nevada is a beautiful lake named Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is frigged right now but it never freezes because the water moves too fast. It doesn’t matter because we are not really here for the lake anyways. We are here for the snow. It is so sad that you have to drive 3 hours and climb 8000 feet from where we live in Berkeley in order to see something that is what winter is all about- and there is tons of it here already and we hear that more is on its way. Not only is it on the ground, but it is on the roads so we get to practice our winter driving skills. We even get to learn a new skill like driving with tire chains on. Snow is on roofs of buildings, it is on cars, and it is on the bottom of our skis because we skied like crazy today. I would say about 80% of the people who visit Lake Tahoe come primarily for the Alpine Skiing. Which means that the “unpopular” Nordic skiing was amazing.
Today (Tuesday) we left our cozy hotel room at 7am and drove to the closest Sno-Park to South Lake Tahoe. (FYI: Sno-Parks are controlled by the California State Parks and are provided for people who do not waste their money on lift tickets but enjoy the finer, more elegant sports of cross-country skiing (nordic and telemark), snow shoeing, and sledding. Oh yeah, those annoying snow mobiles are allowed in some of the parks too. Sno-parks cost $5 per day – visit as many as you can in a day- or $25 for the season which includes staying overnight in your car if you want to. We bought the season pass hoping that we’ll be back at least one more time) You have to do your research before you get to the sno-park because there are few signs and the trails may or may not be marked. These mild inconveniences for the common folk proved to be a great adventure for my curious husband. You see, before we left Berkeley, we went to REI and purchased a couple of topographical maps of the area. (Thank you mom and dad Kinney for the gift certificate) Armed with his maps, compass, and GPS my husband was in 7th heaven today when we traversed the side of a mountain, along a beautiful lake, on a path that had disappeared due to the gusty winds and blowing snow, with the occasional threat of slipping down the mountain into the lake, all on skis. Can you get this kind of adventure from going downhill on a groomed trail at a prissy resort? I think not. You can’t even get this kind of adventure from the resorts that specialize in cross country skiing (which all charge around $20 per day). Today was the most thrilling day on skis that either one of us had ever had. And alas, today is only Tuesday. We still have Wednesday and Thursday to discover more mountains and lakes.
Looking back on our decision, we probably missed the most exciting weather week in Berkeley as there were rainstorms and flooding. Pictures of Berkeley made it to The Weather Channel. Rain is a big deal for people in California. They do not seem to know how to drive in it therefore they crash into other people. Good thing we're not there to witness it.
(Wednesday) Today we slept in slightly longer and got a later start which meant that the roads were more clear than yesterday and that more people were up and about. We stopped first at the National Park Service Headquarters to get some maps and practical information about the trails in the area. A very lovely park ranger gave us some great tips from personal experience and sent us on our way to Carson Pass, a sno-park along highway 88. This park had the deepest snow that we had seen so far. We parked and got our gear together. We always take the typical supplies... duct tape, compass, whistle, GPS, maps, chap stick, water, granola bars, headlamps with extra batteries, etc. I pretty much carry what Grant tells me to take with me. After climbing over a 6 foot wall of snow at the edge of the parking lot, we located a park map on a tree. The map was about 5 feet over our heads. We tried our best to read it but decided to just follow the blue diamonds nailed to the trees as we started our expedition. We'll break up this trip into 3 parts. Keep in mind that today was supposed to be the easy day because we worked so hard yesterday and were sore...
Phase 1: Trail already broken. We followed the path already set before us. Along the way we passed 5 other skiiers returning so we felt pretty good about the path we chose. Then after a downhill, the path turned to the left and the blue diamonds disappeared. At the time, I knew that our plan was to follow the marked path so we turned around to search for the place where the set trail separated from the intended path. Looking back, I probably should have just followed the trail in the snow because it probably would have led back to the start anyways.
Phase 2: The rolling hills of Carson Pass were great. Grant and I had lots of fun skiing in the woods. We backtracked and found the blue diamonds which led us downhill. There was no trail, so we made our own as we let gravity pull us down the hill. At the bottom we found another sign that was nailed pretty high on a tree and decided to loop around towards Woods Lake and then back to the parking lot. The total loop was less than 4 miles total. The trail to the lake was mostly flat with Grant leading the way in breaking trail. At this point, our spirits were still high and the sense of adventure was very strong in Grant. The lake was frozen over but we didn't test its strength. There was nothing too special about the lake.
Phase 3: After all the fun of breaking a trail going downhill, and seeing the river which led to the lake, we realized that we would have to go back up to get to our car. Breaking trail in knee deep snow (it was knee deep on skis and probably close to a foot deeper than than without skis) going up hill proved to be one of the hardest things that I have done while participating in an outdoors sport. We took turns leading eachother and following those faithful blue diamonds. The time sped from 2:30pm when we left the lake to 3:10pm when we were .2 miles farher along the path. The GPS showed that we were getting closer to the highway but were still over a mile away from the parking lot. I wanted to go to the road. Grant dissented, sure that we would get run over because of the weather conditions. It had been steadily snowing the entire time we were skiing. So we tramped on for another .2 miles which took over an hour. By now the sky was getting darker and the road was about 10 feet from us horizontally (about 40 feet vertically). Exhausted, we crawled up the hill, put our headlamps on backwards for the cars behind us, and started skiing on the snow bank created by the snow plows. We did not get hit by any cars but we did get some weird looks from some people as we climbed over the snow bank onto the road. We finally made it back to the car at about 5:30pm- just in time for the snow plow to come and clear a path for us out of the parking lot.
With that adventure behind us, we kept up with our plan of relaxing in the natural hot springs of Grover Hot Springs State Park. The 102 degree pool was great. It was just what we needed. It was especially cool to feel the snow fall as was sat in the toasty outdoor pool.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we head home so I'll finish this adventure when we get back...
