Time to Start Training

    I registered for

The Great Ski Race^®

36th Anniversary, Sunday March 4th, 2012, 9:00 AM

  So I guess i will strat running up hills, stretching every day, and not smoking cigarettes...
  I think it will be fun to race with so many other people through beautiful Tahoe trails.  I am very excited. 

 

America!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMQ0CeXYd54    America...

Please watch this video.  It is my song for travelling. 
    I got Bill Callahan from a new friend I met at Oberlin College, Ohio.  I never knew this video existed to Bubbles notified me.  It rocks! 
          I think this song moves me to wanna get out there, because it is so grand and Golden.

Back on top

    I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled I am to be skiing at the Squaw Valley, California.  After riding lifts like the KT-22, the Emmigrant, Gold Coast, and Granite Chief, I began to grasp just how big this ski area is.  4,000 skiable acres I think, and I still have not gone to Alpine Meadows, the neighboring resort that is supposedley where the good glades and rippers are.  I got to use my brand new season pass yesterday at Swquaw.  It was sunny, warm, and busy.  i rode bymself until someone called me out in the liftline.  "Hey, you were at my house the other night."  I couldn't remember his name, and he mine; he recognized the big black down jacket I was wearing that G let me borrow, and told me that he gave it away because it was too big.  We did a few runs together, then I ate some leftover Mexican Lasagna I had made the night before with Canaan, his roommate and little Kiwi guest.  After that I sat at the sushi, and G handed me over a free fried salmon skin handroll and two pieces of Nigiri salmon.  I sat next to a buddy who grew up at Deep Creek Lake and knows crazy Seanroy from LSD.  (Lake Shore Drive)  Outside I awaited G to finish work, hanging with my hostess Leslie and her Bermese Mountain Dog Luna.  All last night it snowed, we have 4-6 inches, and expect around a foot.  I am working for my first day at the Arc at Gold Coast, a lodge at the top of the Funitel lift.  I am stoked.  Snow, work, and skiing with friends makes life down right enjoyable.  I'll probably just be washing dishes today, but you have to start somewhere.  I think I will like this job; I've already met a few kids I will be working with, and they are young and fun like myself.  I look forward to ripping later this week...

Squaw Squaw!

    Squaw Valley, Olympic Valley

    Alpine Meadows, next ridge over from Squaw Valley.
   I will have the chance to shred both of these awesome resorts as soon as I secure my job in a kitchen at Squaw.  
    I look forward to hitting up the park...
 
    Dropping in on steep lines...

    And riding the funitel...

San Jose, CA

   I have heard from skaters that Lake Cunningham Skate Park, in San Jose, CA is the sweetest park ever.  It is in the bay area near San Francisco.  I would like to check it before I come East, but who knows where a vagrant country boy like me will end up.
Lake Cunningham skate park

The Sierra Viking

    I have not been skateboarding, so you are in for a history lesson.  Snowshoe Thompson helped carry mail over the snowy Sierras from the Sacramento valley to Nevada from 1856 to 1876.  He was the connection for the Atlantic states to California during the cold winter months.

  Sometimes carrying around 100 pounds, his huge homemade skis were 10 feet long, 25 lb. oak "snowshoes", as they were called in the Telemark region of Norway from whence he came.
 "Thompson always wore a Mackinaw jacket, a wide rimmed hat, and covered his face in charcoal to prevent snow blindness. He carried no blankets, but he did carry matches to start fires, and his bible. He snacked on dried sausage, jerked beef, crackers, and biscuits. When a storm kept him from proceeding he would find a flat rock, clear it of snow, and dance old Norwegian folk dances until it passed, then he would continue on his way." http://snowshoethompson.org/the-story/
   

Artwork @ Auburn

    Well, the rain did not stop me and G from tearing it up.  The Auburn skate park was a fun mix of bowls and street.  The artwork along the surrounding wall was very cool;

Auburn skate park, in Oldtown by the Overlook Park

    Then it was back up to Truckee for some light snow and full moon mirkiness.  The dense fog was creepy in the moonlight, and I always think of the history of the place; people stuck, starving, cold.  I am thankful for the food and warmth I get up here in this cold place. 

Auburn, CA

oldtown skatepark

  It is raining, and they say it is needed, but I'm going skating.  Oldtown Auburn it is...  It is supposedly like the Grass Valley one, which was very fun.  As long as it keeps sprinkling like it is, I will be good to go. 

Donner Lake

    On Saturday I skied from Truckee to Squaw Valley.  It took me 4 hours, and it got dark on me after I was out of the woods and walking on the road.  I got there and got a warm cider with whiskey from my friend K bartending at a place called Rocker at Squaw Village.  Everything up there is at least 2 dollars, not a good place for a poor traveller.  But I met someone who may get me a job.  It's working in a restaurant at the top of the ski mountain, and you take a Futinel to get there. 
    Yesterday we drove to Reno to drop off a friend at the airport.  We went to In-n-Out, of course.  It is amazing how the desert is just right there over the mountains from Tahoe, big treeless ranges, golden in the sun.  God Bless America. 
    Today I got out on a nice adventure x-c skiing around Donner Lake.  I skied up onto the ridge above the lake, looking down to where I am staying with G, and behind me the Pacific Coast Trail peaks, all covered in white.  I junp-turned, scrambled over rocks, and crunched through live oak bushes to get down to the train tracks that connect San Francisco to the eastern lands.  The rocks out here are hard granites and volcanic rock that looks like it was bubbly when it formed, probably andesite.  The huge conifers produce a sweet smell, and the neon green moss that grows on them adds to the overall beauty of the sunny, warm day.  I did get to make a few nice turns on the southern facing slopes, as the snow there was completely transformed into corn, wheras the shady parts of the mountain have a terrible breakable crust. 

     

Mo' SunnyShine

    I got to go x-c skiing yesterday, out in the beautiful crunchy snow.  Some places were melted off on the suuny side of the hill. Although there is only a foot or two of snow, the Donner Mtns. hold it well, and I made my way around and down and up a small mountain.  A good view of North Star Ski Area graced me the whole time.  I got back to my car in time to go to town and skate.
    The Truckee Park...  Gotoo goooooo!