It has been awhile since we last checked in with the
blog. The sports world has moved on from
the Olympics to March Madness – from one beloved meta-event to another. I guess that is how I have been keeping track of time.
During this period the skiing has been pretty good, not
amazing. On the plus side, the weather
has been sublime. Temps have been in the
50’s down here at lake level, which means that the running trails near the
house are in good shape. We have had tons of guest, including all of
my nuclear family at various times, which has been amazing.
Up on the resort, the snow level is surprisingly high considering how little moisture has made its way into the Tahoe basin over the last 2 months. Some of this can be attributed to kind of snow we get here, which is wetter and denser than in other parts of the country. Practically, this means that the snow solidifies into one base layer when it warms after the storms. So, we have been skiing the steeps of the canyons on the Nevada side of Heavenly Mountain a ton.
Beyond the fun of visiting with family and friends, skiing
and hitting the trails, I have also been continually amazed at the beauty of
Tahoe. We have been coming here
regularly for 6 years, so one would think that the views would be old news by
now. Instead, the views of the lake from
high on the resort or from the jewel of Emerald Bay continue to amaze.
Basically every day I will be moving around on the mountain
and catch myself lost in the endlessly pretty blues of the crystal clear lake. Just today when staring out at the lake on a
lift I realized I could see the underwater topography of a delta in the lake
where a river flows in from the south. I
have logged hundreds of hours looking at this view, probably thousands, but
here was a new discovery.
Another joy of living here instead of coming up on the
weekend is having more time to explore.
My favorite place has been Emerald Bay, which is about 10 miles up the
West side of the Lake. It has a little
island in the bay, which is roughly one mile across at its largest point and
three miles long. The mouth of the Bay
is quite small and delicate, it appears you could almost walk across but is
probably 200-300 feet. The grandness of
this part of the world makes it a bit hard to accurately gauge distances.
On Sunday a buddy and I took a drive up to the Bay. He went down to the lake level and I went for
a trail run up to a stunning mountain lake that is ringed by granite cliffs reminiscent
of Yosemite. The lake is actually in the
Desolation Wilderness, a designation of public land that is particularly dear
to me because it denotes the absences of machines. This
is something that America does really well, setting aside space that is wild
and removed. Many national parks abroad
end up having more visible human presence, perhaps they are a bit denser and
space is more at a premium compared to America. It was sometimes weird to be in really famous national
parks and for there to be so much human impact.
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