WOLVERINES!!

It's been a long couple of weeks, but taxes are done and maybe eventually I'll feel like talking about other crappy things that happened. But not right now.

Right now I'm just going to say WOLVERINES!! Which you won't get unless you follow The Bloggess on Twitter. UPDATE: I guess I should note that I saw this while skiing the other day. Or maybe that's obvious. Wolverine Bowl: about this steep \

Wolverine fact: The first documented wolverine in California since 1920 was photographed last year by a graduate student who had set up a remote camera to study the effects of landscape change on American martens. It caused quite a stir. Click here if you want to see a good picture of a wolverine butt. They have more recently captured video of what they're pretty sure is the same wolverine.

Contrary to the title of the article, the pine martens the student was studying are NOT birds, and are, in fact, members of the family Mustelidae - the same family as the wolverine. I think they were getting them confused with Purple Martins. You'd think that something called Science Daily would have done a better job with their fact checking.

Ski report

Fog
When I went skiing the week before last, the top of the mountain was completely fogged in. The main high-speed 4 person lift to the top was closed, but they had the very old two-seater-no-safety-bar one running. I took this to the top, and almost regretted it. Visibility was less than 10 feet. Here is an actual picture I took with my phone:See the tree? Luckily, I knew the mountain well enough - I wouldn't go off any cliffs because the top portion is a bowl (with very few trees), so all I had to do was keep going down - and stay on the groomed bits. The problem is estimating speed when you can't see anything. I couldn't tell if I was skiing uphill, across, or down, and kept realizing I was skiing much faster than I thought. It was the weirdest feeling. If I looked down at my skis, I would start to get vertigo, so I kept my head up and my eye out for the very few other idiots skiers who had ventured up. I actually found it fun, in a strange way, so I did it two more times before moving on to more visible parts of the resort. It snowed on and off, and Lake Tahoe was almost indistinguishable from the menacing sky.
A lot of kids that age would be screaming
While I was riding a lift up last Friday, I watched a mother slowly working her way down some moguls with her 6 or 7 year old son, telling him exactly where to go and how to do it. I skied down, and just before I got to them, the little boy made it to the edge of the groomed area, at which point his skis flew out from under him, and he went sliding off down the fairly steep slope sprawled out on his back, slowly rotating clockwise. He slid about 20 or 30 feet and did one complete rotation before coming to a stop. His mother worriedly skied down, and as I skied by, he looked up at her and exclaimed,"That was FUUUUN!!! Can I learn how to do THAT?"

Blues are relative

No, I'm not depressed. No, it's not about John Lee Hooker, who's death may or may not have been caused by one of my friends M. But that's another story.

I'm talking about ski runs - what else?! View of Nevada from Heavenly Resort
Here in North America, the ski runs are rated green (easy), blue (more difficult) and black (most difficult, with a sub-rating of single diamond or double diamond = expert only). I think the corresponding colours in Europe are blue, red and black. I have now managed to ski in five(?) resorts, and generally do the blue runs, although I have recently started black diamond runs - groomed only, and at least initially with my heart in my mouth. Eew. But fun. The definition of blue seems to be relative to the other runs at a particular resort and varies greatly between resorts. My son and I were skiing at Keystone in Colorado last January, and we headed off down a slope that was labeled blue both on the map and at the trail head. It was ungroomed, virtually vertical,and had moguls. Note for non-skiers: Once you start down, it can be very difficult to go back up. That's why they have ski lifts.

William whisked off down it on his snowboard, and was patiently kneeling down at the bottom looking up at me while I v...e...r...y slowly worked my way down. Picked my way all the way across one way. Stopped. Carefully turned around trying not to accelerate. Picked my way all the way across the other way. Repeated - each time descending about three feet.

When I finally got close enough (after 6 or 8 times back and forth) I yelled down in a nervous, high voice (very unlike my normal husky, sexy one), "This is blue??" The word blue pitched up into an unintentional squeak. It's a little stressful to be afraid for your life.

He yelled back, "I would hate to see one of their black ones!"

It was really cold there, but I was sweating profusely and my legs were wobbly by the time I got down. Good exercise! Or something. We headed straight for the bar at the bottom via the nearest green.

Another random photo from last year

All the resorts I've skied:

Boreal Mountain Resort (previously Boreal Ridge)
Heavenly Ski Resort
Northstar-at-Tahoe
Sierra-at-Tahoe (previously Sierra Ski Ranch)
Diamond Peak (previously Ski Incline (I can see why they changed it))
Homewood Mountain Resort
Alpine Meadows
Sugar Bowl
Keystone
Perfect North Slopes (aka Dinky Ball of Solid Ice in Southern Indiana)

Ok, that's more than five.

This is in the California Bar in the California Lodge at Heavenly. I think they should have called it The Grizzly Bar, but nobody ever asks me. Well, at least I used some of the photos I took last year...

A new ski resort!

New to me. Alpine Meadows has actually been around for 44 years.This is the view from the top of the Lake View lift. If you squint, you can see the slopes of another resort across Lake Tahoe - Diamond Peak (previously Ski Incline).

Gambling is bad. Very bad.

I'm currently taking my aunt and cousin around scenic spots in currently very smoky (from the (originally) ~650 fires) California. We've spent several days in San Francisco (Alcatraz, cable cars, etc.), gone to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and toured Lassen Volcanic National Park where many of the spectacular views were only so-so or non-existent due to thick smoke. I should have some pictures later, after I can download them. Right now, we're at Lake Tahoe, where the smoke has cleared a little, staying on the Nevada side.

My aunt has never gambled before. Last year, she apparently bet on some horse races, but she's never been anywhere like Stateline, Nevada. You know. That den of iniquity. We got $10 off each room because we signed up for their Casino card, had a nice cheap prime rib dinner, went for a walk, and then left my cousin in the room with my computer (free wireless internet) while we went to the casino.

My aunt didn't want to play much. She lost £30 when she went to the horse races last year, and she didn't know how to work a one armed bandit. I lost $3 showing her how to use one, and then she lost $3 on the same machine and said she was done. I then put more money in a different machine, played for a couple of minutes and won $90. My aunt got so excited, she put money - in the same machine - and a few minutes later also won $90. We decided to quit while we were ahead. We were both shrieking with laughter. We took photos holding our winnings, and then realized that with all the giggling and waving money around, we were making ourselves easy marks, so (still with much giggling) went into the bar and had a celebratory drink.

I think this has been the highlight of her trip so far.

I hope we aren't contributing to the delinquency of my cousin. She turns 16 on Thursday. When we got back to the rooms we tried to tell her that gambling was bad, and that she should NEVER do it, but it was difficult through all the giggling. I don't think she believed us.

Ouch!

Warning: this is a feeling a little sorry for myself post.

Well, I finally hurt myself (not too badly) yesterday on my very last day of skiing (Andrew - I know, I know. You warned me). I had had one of the best days skiing all year. Conditions were really good (for April) and the slopes were almost completely empty, so I didn't have to worry about being run over by a snowboarder. I skied all over Heavenly Resort, starting on the California side and ending up at the bottom of the Nevada side.

I was skating forward to get on the lift, and I caught my ski on a post, and went flat on my face, landing really hard on my knees. Those same knees that hurt in general all the time, anyway.

I heard a chorus of, "Woah, Duuude. That huuurt!" from the kids running the lift and then, "DUCK!" as the chair swung around toward my head. I had seen the chair, and was wearing my helmet, so I just lay there and let it go by.

I was in pain and embarrassed and I wasn't thinking clearly. I jumped up and said I was ok. One of the guys helped me on with my ski that I hadn't realized had come off, and I caught the next chair up. As soon as I was on the chair, my right knee started to hurt badly enough that I started feeling sick, and began to wonder how I could throw up without falling off the lift. Then I felt faint, and was afraid I was going to pass out and fall off the lift, so I wove my arm through the slats in the back of the chair just in case. Luckily it was very cold yesterday, which helped. I then began to wonder what I would do if my knee didn't work when I got to the top because it REALLY hurt.

Luckily it did. Work, that is. I had a choice of skiing back down (now that I was thinking more clearly) and catching a bus over into California, or making my way back across the mountain. I decided that, since my knees both still seemed to work, and I had been having so much fun, I would ski (carefully) back. This was the shortest route. Seriously:


Almost an hour and six lifts later, I had made it back to California and my car. And more importantly, the BAR. The bartender was kind enough to make me an icepack, and I sat, ate lunch, drank a Long Island Iced Tea, took some Advils, and iced my knee for a long time. The bartender then refilled my ice, and I then drove two hours back home with the bag tied to my leg with a scarf. The bruise is coming up nicely! It should be all kinds of pretty colours soon. You can't really see the swelling in this photo...
Self portrait. Note the same red fuzzy blanket backdrop.

Falling over in the lift line is very embarrassing, but at least I didn't break anything (at least I don't think I broke anything) like our governator did when he fell over on the ski slope supposedly while standing still a couple of years ago.

Historic Sugar Bowl

Yesterday, I went to Sugar Bowl ski resort for the first time. This is a view of Donner Lake from the top of one of the mountains. As in Donner Pass, and the Donner Party. This place has a history of getting a lot of snow. I've skied at four or five ski resorts and never seen this sign on a building before:In case you can't read it, here's a close-up: Then I noticed this at the lift:You don't have to tell ME more than once. I hated Danger UXB (I had to watch it because I had a crush on Anthony Andrews - I just hid in the hall whenever he was defusing a bomb). After seeing these signs I don't know whether I felt safer or not. On one hand they're doing avalanche control. On the other...they have avalanches??

I got to the top of the lift, and this caught my eye: I got closer and found that this was the site of the California's first chairlift. Then just a little way down the slope I saw that they actually still use one of these: Yes, that is a huge chunk-O-concrete counterweight. This lift wasn't running today, but obviously still does.

Partway up the lift I also saw this: It was on a black diamond (expert) slope, and I don't generally go down those on purpose, so I couldn't see what it's plaque said.

They also had an example of a much newer lift that is still fairly common at many resorts: But they are generally being replaced by these high speed lifts: The chairs actually come off the high speed cable, slow down so they don't whack you in the back of the knees (like some of the older ones do), and then reattach to whisk you up (or down in some instances) the mountain. I've always thought riding these big lifts is like riding a ride at Disneyland, and just as fun. And looky here at the name on this lift: Yes, Walt Disney was one of Sugar Bowl's founding fathers mentioned in the above plaque.

A day just isn't complete without an Elvis sighting.

Ski Hypocrite

I went skiing today for the first time this season, and yes, again I'm a hypocrite. I love downhill skiing. I know that ski resorts clear-cut huge areas of forest for ski runs, buildings and parking areas, and negatively affect the watershed numerous ways. As a freshwater aquatic ecologist, I am very concerned about the state of the watershed, and I generally ski in an exceptionally fragile environment--the Lake Tahoe basin. These days ski resorts even use a lot of water making snow--is this really a beneficial use of water in states as arid as California and Nevada? When I'm skiing down a freshly groomed slope really early in the season I say YES! (so does the California Water Resources Control Board who gave the ski resorts water rights for this back in the 80s)

But then I get up on top of the mountain, and I have what is probably the closest thing to a religious experience I'll ever have. Looking out at the Sierra Nevada mountains and especially down at Lake Tahoe is so incredibly beautiful. Sometimes I'll be concentrating on skiing, and look up and just have to stop to look at the view. Here is a picture of me with my son taken a couple of years ago at Heavenly Resort in South Lake Tahoe. It looks like a backdrop behind us, but we are really at about 9500 feet near the top of Heavenly.

I started skiing at 36, so I'll never be very good, but when I put skis on, I felt as though I was born to ski. I just got tired of sitting in the lodge while my son and his friends were all out having a good time snowboarding. I had had a lot of experience on a slalom water ski when I was younger because I married into a water skiing family, and I had done some cross country skiing in Indiana, so I wasn't completely unfamiliar with large boards attached to my feet. My brother has since started to ski also.

I now at least am not a helmet hypocrite. I have made my son wear one all along (he is a snowboarder, after all), but I have my own now. I have been run over or had close calls, mainly with snowboarders, one too many times. My son is not one of the idiot snowboarders, of course.

If you are in South Lake Tahoe and feel like a really good hamburger, I highly recommend Izzy's Burger Spa. I had the Bonsai Burger (teriyaki and pineapple). If I don't watch it, I won't fit into my new snow pants for long.