Zmoda travel agencies brought forth a fun weekend in Tahoe. The trip seemed to mesh easily and proceeded well; given all the people we would be meeting, riding, and hanging out. We landed in Reno, after a relatively short flight (the drive would have taken a taxing 17 hrs) on a Continental Flight flown by US Airways, but operated by United. Yea it was that simple checking in too. After landing Reno, we were greeted by our friend Kelly and many many slot machines.
Kelly drove up from Fresno and was nice enough to pick us up and drive our Colorado hides down to South Lake Tahoe with a jumble of snowboards hanging out the back of her Ford sedan. South Lake is a pretty weird place. It falls right on the Nevada/California Border. On the Cali side, lies restaurants, stylish shops, and ski slopes. On the Nevada side, lies casinos and some forest fires, and that’s pretty much it. Our hotel, the illustrious Cedar Inn, was right along the State Line Road (it actually was the state line). When I first found out about this, immediately thought hookers would be patrolling the Nevada side of the street, but alas, this was not true.
The Cedar Inn was quite quaint, and run by an elderly Asian women, that loved Z and treated him like her own grandchild. We would call Cedar Inn home for the next couple of days and it would house our base of operations for the long weekend. Needless to say, we were right next door to the now abandoned “Block” hotel, which should give your a good feel of the area.
The next day after a brief yet amazing breakfast stop (Acai Bowls), we made our way to the historic and glorious Olympic mountain that is Squaw Valley. At Squaw, we lucked out because this year was the 50th Anniversary of the 1960’s Olympics. (It took us all weekend to figure why people were wearing 50/60 hat. I thought quietly to myself that it was some type of new fitted hat trend). Squaw was definitely different than anything I had ever ridden before. It consists of basically Alpine Boarding/Skiing bowls with large rock drops and sparse tree runs. Also, you could sort of feel the nostalgia in the air, or you saw it when an old dude rocking a neon skin suit and original Nordic Skis would cruise by you. The day was perfect and bluebird. If you hunted for it, you found some fresh powder.
On the ride back, we stop at Jared and Rachel’s new place. Their new digs are pretty amazing. They now live in the town of Meeks Bay (population 150 152). Nestled deep in the southwest corner of Lake Tahoe, they have great access to a local mtn, whose name current escapes me, and Squaw. They did some thrifty shopping and shenanigans, and ended up getting season passes for each, how sick! They had a amazing view of the lake and Jerad promised to keep me update on the snow totals that they would receive.
Afterwards, we made our way back to south lake. By this time all of the Cali friends had arrived in full force. The funny thing was that without any earlier discussion, everyone end up stopping at safeway and getting food from the now infamous sub-designer Veronica. The night went well, everyone was very social, and we eventually made our way to the Casino Bar. Note: Casino Bars are indeed very very weird. I thought Colorado Springs had a bad cougar infestation, but I have give it the Cabo Wabo Bar for coming in a close 2nd. All I can say is wow to that Bar. We had a drink or two and then left. I went to play video games with Sean, Jimmy and Kelly. We ended up winning all tickets and getting Chinese Finger Traps, Dinosaurs, and a large Bouncy Ball. Meanwhile Z and some others made their way to the gambling table. While I was not there, here is what I heard. Everyone lost $50 at roulette. Z, in a solid metal state as he normally is on fun adventurous weekends, played some blackjack. During one hand, he ended up staying on 4. Yes 4, in a game of blackjack, which properly garnered astonished looks from everyone in the casino. So after all the fun, we headed back to the Chalet that was the Cedar Inn.
The next morning, we all got up and road at Heavenly. You could definitely tell that this was a Vail Corporation Resort. We took a long gondola ride to the top of the resort. This mountain was split between Nevada and Cali. We headed directly for the Nevada side, because of some inside knowledge of hidden powder lanes. We found a sweet run near the Olympic Lift that opened a world of possibilities. I found the sweetest tree/rock drop run of my life. Bearing far left in the Nevada Woods, you descended the mountain through a
glade of enormous Jeffrey Pines. Each of which towers over 160ft above the forest floor. Then in 3 feet of powder and packed snow, one can float off of cliffs and cruise on top of downed trees with ease. Nearing the end of the day we made our way to the Cali side, only to be greeted by the 1st wave of El-Nino. Our faces were pounded by 100mph gust of wind and ice. We slowly but steadily made our way to the bottom as lifts closed for safety reasons. Once to the bottom we relaxed and played numerous games of Uker. At which I am quite good at except for a re-neg every once and awhile. Everyone eventually bailed out so as not to get trapped by the onslaught of storms.
The next morning we tried to find a bus to take us back to Reno, but as it turns out our buddy Sean actually didn’t have work, even after waking up early and driving to squaw. He came back down for a breakfast at Heidi’s and hauled us back to the Airport in his suburban ( which used to be a prius, ha) through an el-Niño storm. All and all a great adventure.
Sick trip dude!! Looks like a lot of fun. Too bad you were 1 week late and missed this huge storm. Although, this week would probably have been somewhat of a travel disaster.
Nice pics as usual!
Thanks man, to be honest i almost marked you as spam, your the first real comment that i had in months. And yea i m sad we missed that crazy storm, but i think we would have been stuck there for a long time.