Winter Weekends at Lake Tahoe

Last Updated: March 19, 2015 by Paul

For our first consultant class activity we decided to go skiing at Kirkwood for the weekend. Uncle Bain was nice enough to give us Friday off for it, and pay for our accomodation, so we all piled up to Kirkwood on Thursday night and Friday morning. We timed getting up there perfectly as there had been a big snowfall on Thursday, but Friday and half of Saturday were perfect for skiing (fresh snow + sun). And then it snowed all weekend!

It actually snowed a little too much…! We had at least 4-5 feet of snow fall over Saturday night, which meant a lot of shovelling to get the cars out on Sunday morning. Not that there was anything to do! There was so much snow that they didn’t open the resort (too much snow to go skiing?!) and the roads on Highway 88 in both directions were closed. Eventually they opened 88E in the late afternoon and we used the opportunity to escape. Getting home was an adventure as I lost one chain off the tyre, and the going was slow once we hit Highway 50 in South Lake Tahoe with the combination of weekend traffic heading back to SF plus heavy snowfalls.

The girls on the slopes. Ben gets shovelling.

Aaaaaah…

Ploughing the driveway!

My car the next morning! It’s under there somewhere…

Over President’s Day weekend it was great to get away to Heavenly (on the south shore of Lake Tahoe, straddling the border between California and Nevada) with Jamie, Ilya, Margarita and Maria Antonia. The weather was fantastic (sunny and warm – we could have skied in t-shirts!) but with conditions like that the snow was only so-so. The mountain was also jam packed with all the once-a-year family skiers, meaning the runs were packed and the lift queues long. We still had a great time though! Margarita and Ilya chose Heavenly because of its close proximity to a couple of Nevada casinos, and Jamie and I spectated while they splurged big on the poker tables – while we high-rollers went $20 down on the $2 roulette table.