It was good to finally get up to Heavenly for the weekend. The skiing was great. The weather was beautiful. The drive was manageable. The cats survived. Here's the recap:

THE DRIVE
Whenever you talk someone from the Bay Area about skiing in Tahoe, the conversation will invariably turn to the drive up and the traffic problems. Highway 80 which starts at the Oakland Bay Bridge and links the Bay Area to the Tahoe area is a nightmare during rush hour and akin to a parking lot on Friday evenings. So the plan was to wait until about 7:30, 8 o'clock and then hit the road. I packed my gear. I cleaned the cat box and filled it with new litter. I left out two bowls of food and two bowls of water. Then I hit the road.

I got to the 80 just before 8pm and faced the worst, the fucking thing was jam packed full of cars. I got off immediately, turned around and headed through the Caldecott Tunnel towards Walnut Creek. It's a little longer to go that way via the 24 and the 680, but there's no traffic, so I was breezing along. It was clear sailing over the Benecia Bridge (3 dollar toll) and I didn't hit any real major traffic the rest of the way, just some slowing as I neared Sacramento.

I stopped at In-N-Out Burger in Placerville for dinner around 10. I'm always surprised at how typically wholesomely American the workers are. It's like stepping back into the 50s. The burgers, incidentally, are tasty.

After Placerville, the 50 starts to head up into the Sierras. This is first time I've ever been on this highway, as far as I can remember, so I had no memory of the windy, narrow, slick road I was now facing. I've have been to Heavenly before, but not since I was in high school, and we always flew up from Los Angeles. It's something like 50 miles between Placerville and Tahoe. None of it is fun. I kept having this feeling like the Subaru was going to slide off the road into one the massive styrofoam-like snow banks that lined both sides of the road. But the Subaru was true and I made it to South Lake Tahoe around 11:30, not bad time from Alameda.

THE HOUSE
I joined this ski lease a few months ago with 16 other people that I've never met. It was all done online through craigslist. I gladly paid 1000 bucks to have a place to stay from January to May. Who knows whether it will pay off, but for now, I'm glad that I did it. I dragged my bags inside, took of my shoes and went upstairs to met the crew.

A handful of people were sitting around the fire in the living room, drinking and chatting and laughing. Ed and Lauren, our fearless leaders were there. Jake and Lindley, a couple of Berkeley grad students who pulled up to the house the same time I did, were there. Ed had three guests from Calgary, Steve, Cam and Derek. I grabbed a beer from the balcony and sat down to chat with everyone. It felt comfortable right away. Everyone seems nice. A few more people, Kristen from Mountain View, Maggie and Lisa from SF, trickled in during the night and we talked until around 2:30am when everyone crashed.

The house is a two story job, just a living room downstairs with two pullout couches and three bedrooms upstairs with another pullout bed in the living room. It's going to be tight if everyone comes up every weekend, but that's not going to happen. There are 6 queen size beds, a few extra couches and some extra mattresses. If someone has to sleep on the floor on a busy weekend, so be it. There's a hot tub outside. There's a gourmet kitchen with 6 gas burners and granite counter tops. There's a wood burning stone fireplace. I brought a liter of Ketel One and added it to the 6 liters already in the freezer. The place is very comfy.

The house is about 10 minutes from Heavenly and 35 minutes from Kirkwood. I was lead to believe that half of the skiers would have passes at Heavenly, but it turns out that only 5 do and 2 of those also have passes at Kirkwood. It would be ideal if everyone skied at the place and far better if there was some parity, but we have what we have. The few, the proud, the Heavenly pass holders.

THE MOUNTAIN
I skied at Heavenly a few times with the family back in high school. I always remembered it as a great place to ski, so when it came time to decide what mountain in Tahoe to buy a season pass for, Heavenly was the clear leader. That the pass was less than 300 bucks helped.

Other than Lauren who skied all weekend at Kirwood, Kristen was the only other person in the house with a Heavenly pass, so we skied together Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we drove to the Nevada side (fewer skiers, more parking) and after finding the Stagecoach lot full and almost getting stuck in the snow (the Subaru powered out easily when I downshifted to 1st), we found a spot at the Boulder Lodge. I grabbed my season pass and we hit the slopes.

The first day of any ski season is always a little rough. The muscles don't want to work right. The altitude takes adjusting to. The feet don't want to get in the boots. So the first day wasn't my best day of skiing ever, but it was good to get back in the groove.

It was seriously busy on the mountain. Almost too busy. Hopefully it's a combination of the 3-day weekend and skiers lured to Tahoe with all the new snow and not a regular occurrence, because I hate waiting in lift lines. Kristen and I often went single, but when we were able to ride up together I found out that she was is from Boston, went to UConn, lived the last 4 years in Denver, works at Stanford, is a serious sports fans, Sox, Pats, Celts, and Dodgers. Dodgers? Well, it turns out that her dad is Dave Wallace, current pitching coach for the Boston Red Sox and former pitching coach and longtime employee of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Pretty cool. She's even a decent skier, so she was able to hang with me. So even though there's only a few Heavenly skiers in the house, at least one will be able to ski with me most weekends.

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. It was almost too hot, probably in the 40s. The sun was out. The sky was blue. And you can't really beat the view of Lake Tahoe from anywhere on the mountain. The skiing might be better in Colorado, but you can't beat the scenery of Tahoe.

Kristen and I skied a few runs in the morning. Grabbed lunch at the Stagecoach lodge. Shared a table with a hilarious gay black couple from Oakland. Skied a few more runs in the afternoon, all on the Nevada side, and then called it a day. There were a few incidents of line rage with skiers freaking out because someone was skipping the line. And security had to be brought out to remove some drunk guy who wanted to fight the liftie. "Don't fucking touch me, you homo," was how he eloquently described his beef. We were both tired and sore. We beat a retreat home and jumped in the hot tub, at which point I was convinced getting involved in the ski lease was one of the best things I've ever done in my life.

We got a late start on Sunday, all the free lots were full, and we had to pay 20 bucks to park at the Gondola, which was annoying, not because of the money, although that was annoying in itself, but mostly because we had to wait at the massive line at the Gondola. Then again, we got to check out the California side.

The clouds were out and it was little colder than Saturday, but only for a few hours when the sun burst through and lit up all the mountains that ring the lake. It's stunning.

We had a small dilemma in that the Patriots-Colts game was on at 1 o'clock. Kristen was foaming at the mouth to see the game. I wanted to see it, but if I missed it for skiing, I could live with myself. We decided to ski until game time, grab a spot at the California Bar down at the base lodge, have lunch, watch the start of the game and see how we felt.

I was feeling great so I pushed hard in the morning and Kristen was more or less able to keep up. It actually worked out well because I could get in the lift lines first and she could join me when she caught up. We found small lines on the Canyon Express and rode it death until lunch, then we skied down to watch the game.

I decided I was going to watch the first quarter and then hit the slopes again. The snow was coming down hard and heavy in Boston where the game was being played, but the sun was pouring in the windows of the bar we were sitting in. It was far too nice to waste the afternoon watching football. I skied a few more runs in the afternoon. Met up with Kristen to watch the rest of the game and headed home.

I don't know if I should find this disconcerting at all, I do have a really bad memory, but I didn't have a single moment of recognition when I was skiing at Heavenly. I didn't remember the lifts, the runs, the lodges, nothing. It could be that the mountain was given a facelift when it was bought by Vail Resorts a few years back. Fuck, I hope that's it.

One of the reasons that it's great to have this ski house is that I don't have to get in the car immediately after a day of skiing and join the throngs in the bumper to bumper traffic back to the Bay Area. Instead, I can leisurely head back to the house, hit the hot tub, have a shower, eat dinner, wash my clothes, have an adult beverage, do some reading, watch a little TV, store my gear, and, best of all, avoid all the traffic.

So I did all those things. I left about 8pm. The roads were empty. I cruised home in 3 hours. The cats were happy to see me (when are they not?). They had emptied both their food and water bowls, so I'm going to have make an adjustment for next weekend. The litter box held up well. I was exhausted. I crashed. It was a great weekend.