Playing in the Snow at Heavenly Valley

After J. got home we decided to take the kids up to Tahoe, where they could play in the snow and I could get some skiing in.  We bundled them up in their snow pants, jackets, boots and gloves and rode the gondola up to the Tamarack lodge area -- which is about 8000 feet up.  The wind, snow, and cold are all much more extreme than down at the lake level.  Fortunately the girls had a good window of time to play in -- romping all over the snow, trying to make snowballs, and then going to the lodge for hot cocoa.  Of course, despite having glove clips, one of the kids gloves did manage to escape.  Click on the picture below to see a slideshow of their adventure.



While they did that, I went skiing on the Nevada side of the mountain, where conditions were pretty fast for late March.  There has been a lot of snow recently, and cold temperatures, so Sunday was good and I was surprised by how dry/icy conditions were.  Normally one needs a mid day ski wax to keep going through the slush, but the mountain was free of that right now.

Last night it snowed another 3 inches, so we got up early, had breakfast and went back up to the mountain.  I skiied the Stagecoach and California areas, and conditions were terrific.  It snowed most of the morning and was the best I'd experienced in Tahoe all year -- fresh, light snow, with no crowds so one could ski as fast as they liked without having to worry about traffic.  By 1pm, the kids started getting tired, so I met everyone at the gondola and we all rode down together.  We put them into their pajamas, popped them in their car seats and headed down the valley.  After some (more) hot cocoa they fell asleep and snoozed the whole 100 miles home.

It was a nice mini trip.