South Lake Tahoe: With 16 friends, one sister, and four kids.

This past week was a big one for us. We fed a family of seven (my sister's), skied with five members of that family for two days, skied/snowboarded for two more days with 16 friends and friends of friends, and had an "80s Olympic Glory Party" in between the two friend ski days. Needless to say, there were more skiers/riders on Saturday then on Sunday.

The social part of our week started on Wednesday afternoon when my sister arrived with her husband and five kids -- ages 6 -17. My sister is only 6 years older than me but has accomplished a lot. She is a doctor and fantastic mom to five really beautiful and wonderful kids. Wilson and I were lucky because we got to ski with my sister and the four youngest kids on Thursday and Friday at Kirkwood.

Both Thursday and Friday were gorgeous ski days at the resort -- high of 50 degrees but the snow stayed cold. The kids surprised us with how good they have gotten. The 6 year old was landing jumps and grinding boxes at the terrain park. And we took our 13 year old niece, MaryAnn, and 11 year old nephew, Soren, on a double black diamond. Very exciting! Especially, when Wilson and the friends from the ski house took MaryAnn off the cornice at the top of the run. Her bravery and eyes shining like stars have been engraved into my bank of happy memories.
On Friday evening, we had to say goodbye to my sister's family and the ski house began to fill up in earnest. Three folks from our ski house, Mary Parmer Hillier, Justin Bieber (that really is his name), and Brandt Jewell have had or will have their birthdays over this three week period and we celebrated them this past weekend. Justin and Brandt were celebrating the big "3-0" and so we wanted to do something big -- we settled on gourmet cupcakes and general festivities on Friday with a big themed party on Saturday: "80s Olympic Glory".

Throughout the night, Brandt and Sonya were the announcers of a series of mis-shapen competitions: ski boot races, solo flip -cupping, and of course, same sex ice dancing. We had four "countries" for the competitions: Red, White, Blue, and Stars. The Red team was composed of the women from the house, the Blue and White teams were male, and the Stars were a guest team of a friend from law school, Joel Cohen, his brothers and Joel's dad who must be in his sixties."80s Olympic Glory" was complete with costumes of a lot of USA gear and neon spandex. We had bobsledders, nordic skiers, and of course, ice dancers. But the best costumes and performances were: Brandt, as the torch, and his slender wife, Sonya, who as the "torch bearer" actually carried Brandt into our opening ceremony.

The games played out with a lot of laughter and competition and surprisingly the women's team of Red took the majority of the Golds. But the big Winner of the games was Joel's dad when Joel's brother spun him around in a way that demonstrated a surprising amount of athleticism as well as the extent of his "youth."

From a 60-year old executing "ice" dancing lifts to a 13-year old dropping a cornice, this past week reminded me of the eternity of youth in all of us.

Posted with Blogsy

Loving the Olympics

My Olympic hockey watching schedule has been a little crazy.  For the round robin and quarterfinals hockey schedule, the first game of the day kicks off at midnight, and I watch that until the game is decided.   Thankfully, the game is usually decided during the second period. Then, I drift off to sleep on the couch -- setting the alarm for sometime between 5 and 5:30 am. This means I miss the first period of the second game, but that is the best I can do.  I watch the game as the daylight slowly creeps into the house - under my sleeping bag and cozy as could be. The final game(s) start at 9 am - I watch until they are decided and then head to the resort to ski.

It is kind of a disorienting schedule, but one that I relish. Olympic ice hockey is the highest quality of the sport and is an absolutely delight to watch. The speed of the game is superb, the flow of the competition without TV timeouts makes it even better, and the joy of rooting for my country never diminishes. Having played hockey for over two decades, the quality of the play is captivating. I looked forward to these games months ago when I realized we would be in Tahoe for Sochi 2014 (okay, maybe I planned it a bit).
My Vancouver experience

Beyond my standard joy in the Games, the Sochi Olympics has me fondly recalling the last winter games - 2010 Vancouver. I was fortunate enough to be able to go to those Olympics for a few days because my old company, Avaya, was a supplier of high tech communications infrastructure. They are a sponsors and supplier again for Sochi, which is a great honor and achievement for the company. From what I have read online during the Games, they are doing a great job.
These 4 years have passed pretty quickly, and I can still vividly recall the highlights of my time up in Vanocovuer. Guess what? The memories are heavy on the hockey, as I got to attend two quarterfinal games and see the US team win one of those games in person. I remember very strongly walking to the game, buying a scalped ticket (for maybe a bit more than neccsary, but I had to be there) and in an arresting few moments walking into the arena. I would see the US play in person!

Here is what I wrote in 2010 about the US Olympic hockey quarterfinal game I attended, or one of the sporting spectator highlights of my life.

Got back an hour ago from an electric Olympic event, the U.S. hockey team’s tight 2-0 victory over the scrappy and feisty Swiss team. This was my first Olympic event and it was even better than I had expected, and I am big hockey fan having played the sport since my childhood through today. The intensity and effort of the players is phenomenal, throughout the rosters. Both goalies played amazing. Perhaps the best part was that the atmosphere in the game was really cool, with rolling chants of usa, usa often overpowered by the swiss chants, which were pretty liberally picked up by the many Canadians in attendance.
The game was super exciting, with only one goal without an open net and two reviews by the referees of possible goals, one for the U.S. and one for the Swiss. The Swiss goal was off the far post, and did not go in. I have to confess that it was impossible for me to be 100% sure even though the play took place at my end of Canada Hockey Place. The referee was able to quickly check the review, provided by Omega, the Official Timekeeper of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games and determine that the puck did not cross the line. Overall, a pretty straightforward process.
The first disallowed/reviewed goal was really interesting/complex, as the U.S. was initially awarded the goal at the end of the second period on a bouncing puck that went in right at the buzzer. However, after careful review by the ref, it was determined that the goal did not cross the line until after the period had expired. Now, this was within a tenth of a second, so it was absolutely essential that the review was perfect. The whole process got me thinking about the system for review. Basically, the referee had to have complete confidence that the video and time was perfectly synced up, so that he could view the replay and make an informed and correct decision. All this with over 18,000 spectators in the arena and millions more watching around the world waiting with baited breath.

Our adventure started when the London games were ongoing and now we are already at the Winter games. Wow. In some ways, it feels bookended by Olympics. Not a bad way to mark time.
- Link to the rest of my work posts from the 2010 Games, if you are interested (or bored?)
http://www.avaya.com/blogs/archives/tag/olympics

Posted with Blogsy

Tahoe: sometimes it goes nuclear

Apologies to my grandmother for using nuclear in a positive fashion. She has fought against nukes for decades. So I imagine she does not really enjoy seeing nuclear as a metaphor for something very desirable - feet and feet of snow.

I use the phrase to describe the special speed and volume of snowfall that can occur in the Lake Tahoe basin. It can snow here faster than anyplace I have ever been. Sometimes when you are outdoors in a full force storm, visibility is mere feet and the snow is accumulating at multiple inches an hour. I know that may be small solace for folks on the east coast getting blasted by yet another huge winter storm as I write. But, it has been my experience that tahoe can fill it up quicker than anywhere.

For example, last weekend brought 4-8+ feet of snow on the crest of the sierras. Yes feet. Yesterday Mu and i went to Kirkwood, which has received 8 feet of snow over the last 5 or so days. So much snow that it has been a huge endeavor to dig out the resort and make sure that it is safe enough for people to ski. The second job is particularly important with this kind of storm and the elevated avalanche danger that is a by-product of volume and high moisture ratios for the snow in the Tahoe area.

Tahoe gets so much snow because it is close to the biggest reservoir of moisture in the world, the Pacific Ocean. It is 200 miles on the highway from San Francisco and as the crow flies probably more like 120 miles to the ocean.

This last set of storms had a plume of moisture extending from Hawaii all the way to Tahoe. Wave after wave of moisture came ashore and crashed into the large mountains, dumping the saturated moisture. The temperatures are also generally higher than other mountain resorts, which is part of what makes it attractive for my wife and also tends to result in heavier snow compared to Colorado or Utah. Heavier snow is not as great for skiing but because of the snow volume and frequency, you usually get a ton of powder days.

At least that is the plan. Tahoe has been in a drought, but the big storm from last weekend has got most resorts in the basin approaching 100%. Now we just need the snow to keep coming.

Stepping back, it has been a bit quiet on the blog front from us, which is really an inevitable outcome of our stepping off the travel merry go round for a spell. As I noted in my previous post, we are going to be in Tahoe for the next 2 months. Our living situation is very cush relative to our travel lifestyle. We are ensconced in the old ski house that we got for several years with friends from the Bay and Sacramento. This year, we are simply living in the house instead of commuting up and back to the Bay every weekend. Many Sundays i would tell Mu as we drove out of tahoe how much I wish we lived here, and now we do for the next months. On balance, the situation is pretty similar to the one we had in Breckenridge last ski season, but instead of a condo we are in a 4 bedroom house.

On the blogging front, these times we have set up in a ski destination become much harder to write. We aren't moving around so there are not many new things to share. My days are pretty similar, with a healthy chunk of time spent on the mountain getting in turns. Lately, that leaves a bunch of time to enjoy the Olympics.

Furthermore, a big aim of this blog is write about other cultures, and show what we are seeing via photos. Right now, the culture is the same as most of our friends and family. Being in our dominant culture does not allow for the same frequency of intercultural exchanges, or misadventures.

Looking forward, we will hope for more nuclear meteorological events in the coming days. Sorry Nana, but it is true. As interesting things happen, we will write about them too.

 

Posted with Blogsy

The Dream Continues in Tahoe: Lifestyle Sports

A few weeks ago, I listened to a climbing podcast that talked about a segment of climbers who enjoy the climbing as a 'lifestyle' sport. Lifestyle sport means that it isn't just the sport that makes the activity attractive, it is the whole lifestyle that surrounds it. For climbing, some examples of this "lifestyle" are the camping, the intimate camaraderie, and the traveling to places that are off the beaten track.

This idea totally resonated with me, but in a larger context. In essence, Muriel and I have adopted the lifestyle of professional adventure athletes for the past 18 months, just without the sponsorship, the videos, the first ascents/decents, and really any notable sports achievement. Still, the outdoor sport lifestyle is why we have carried out climbing gear all over Europe, Africa and Asia, lugged our backpacking gear from the tip of South America to the Carribean, and stuffed our car to the brim for 2 months of adventures in the West.

Professional athletes often focus on one or two sports, and do them at a world class level, boundary pushing excellence. Our outdoor lifestyle doesn't fit that model for separate reasons, for me and Muriel. For Muriel, her passion for outdoor sports really blossomed when she was in college-- relatively late in life. So she is just happy to achieve competence and has little idea of achieving excellence (or even really good) through a solo focus on a single sport. For me, Wilson, solo focus does not fit my temperament. Instead, I want to be good at many sports. For example, I love the sport of climbing and its specific challenge, but would never want to devote all of my energies to only that sport. Rather, I want to multi-sport to my heart's content, indulging in the variety of a life in the outdoors. I believe so strongly that diversity is an essential lifeblood of human existence, and want to have diversity in my own interests and passions to stay fresh and engaged.

The last nine days have indulged that multi-sport passion, even by the standards of our wanderlust and normal whirlwind. Across this period, I have surfed in Bali, climbed at Red Rocks and am now skiing in Park City at the massive Canyons resort. Each of these three spots is totally world class for the respective sport. These are the kind of places that devoted athletes in each discipline know and want to visit. You know this by just listening to the various languages spoken by the other citizens of the world surfing, climbing and skiing.

Skiing is a great sport for thinking, you have the 'dead' time of the lift to tunnel into your brain as well as the flow that results from the turns themselves. So, being back on my beloved skis has my mind pleasantly racing, and feeling so fortunate for the opportunity to do so many sports that I love in stunning locations.

Including this last week, the highlights of the dream include;

- Climbing in many of the greatest crags of the world - Ton sai, Kalymnos, Smith, Red Rocks, Sardina, Geyabayiri, and the New River Gorge;

- Mountain biking in Moab, Bend, Mammoth and Whistler;

- Skiing in Colorado (including Breckenridge and Vail), and Utah;

- Surfing in Bali;

- Backpacking in Patagonia, in the Cordillera Blanca and along the John Muir Trail;

- Whitewater rafting on the Zambezi.

The reality is that these pursuits are the unifying thread of our trip.

When we had arrived in Vegas last week, my dad asked a couple times whether Mu and i were feeling any emotional angst or sorrow for the conclusion of the international component of our dream. We aren't planning on using our passports anytime soon, and that means the 354 days we have spent abroad over the last year and half are complete. I answered his question clear eyed each time with an emphatic 'No'.

He seemed surprised, which I totally understand. If we don't feel any particular let down emotionally after so many epic adventures, with so many people and new places, when are we going to feel those emotions? At first, i thought this lack of emotion was the result of my innate forward looking temperament. I am naturally focused on what is next, whatever that may be. Have been my whole life.

But having thought about these exchanges a fair bit for the last week, i think the answer is simpler. You see, we are on our way to Tahoe right now, for 2 more months of skiing. We will live in one of my favorite spots on earth, ski with many friends and family, and continue living the outdoor lifestyle that we have revealed to be our preference. It doesn't feel like our dream is over, just because it will be taking place within the borders of these United States.

 

Posted with Blogsy