Powder skiing on Friday, beach on Sunday

The ski resorts around Lake Tahoe got a bunch of fresh snow last week. We had skied three days so far this season, but the mountains hadn't gotten snow in weeks, so we couldn't judge Tahoe's reputation for great powder skiing. We also had never really skied in deep powder before. (Every time we've mentioned to people on the slopes that we're from the northeast, they joke that New England skiing is ice skating, and there's definitely truth to that.)

So seeing the reports of fresh powder — with 17 inches at Kirkwood — and expecting the conditions to draw enormous crowds over the weekend, we decided to beat the horde and ski on Friday.

We hitched a ride to Kirkwood through SnowPals.org in the back seat of a pickup truck, departing from SF at 4:30 Friday morning. We were on the slopes at 9 a.m. There were several inches of nice powder, with clear sunny skies.

(Video of me skiing in thick powder)

By lunch time, the clouds had moved in, and it started snowing very hard. The powder piled up fast. Around 3 p.m. it was hailing. We were going to do a few last runs, but being exhausted and getting pummeled by hail, we decided to call it a day.

We were back home by 9:30 p.m., and slept very, very soundly.

Saturday I worked at home, making up for the lost time on Friday. (That way I kept my PTO for later and [hopefully] set a good precedent with the boss.)

Sunday morning, the weather was beautiful, and we decided it was a good day to start planting an herb garden on the porch. So we started up the motorcycle to drive to a nearby nursery. As we loaded up, we realized it was too nice a day to waste merely on errands. So we took a detour for an hour and a half and drove south on Route 1. Along the way, we stopped at a beach, where (despite what had to be very cold water) there were people surfing and swimming.

(All photos were taken with my iPhone.)

- Ben