Skiing at Lake Tahoe

During the Thanksgiving break, we went to Lake Tahoe. It was a "last minute" decision: we found a hotel with a ski package on Wednesday afternoon. After preparing the luggage and our ski gear, we left at about 11am on Thursday. The traffic conditions were relatively bad... of course. We entered Lake Tahoe from the South and drove up along the lake until just before Tahoe City. As forecasted the weather was not very good, but we had already some nice views on the Lake. It was already late in the afternoon when we arrived at the "Granlibakken Resort". We then had a hard time finding an open restaurant on Thanksgiving night. But in the end, we found a nice place in Squaw Village.

On Friday, the sun was shining and we went skiing in Squaw Valley (where the 1960 Olympic Games took place). The snow was really good even if it had been raining the day before. The resort is quite different from what we are used to in the Alps: it's actually a pretty small domain (the highest elevation is 2500m). We were astonished by the fact that some chairlifts don't have a security bar! But we felt quite at home in the Swiss made Funispace ;-)

A snow storm moved in on Saturday morning: when we woke up it was snowing heavily. By the time we finished breakfast there was already 15cm of fresh snow. We walked to Tahoe City to buy chains for the car. Quite an expedition ;-) : we thought it would be more fun to cut through the woods instead of following the main road... It was indeed very funny but only until we had to cross the Truckee river. As Go made it to the other side with a surprise bath in the middle (only up to the thighs), we decided to follow the river (each on his side of the river) until the next bridge: flooootch, floootch, floootch...

On Sunday the sun was shining again but it was cold and windy. We had a very nice skiing day on perfect snow.

The trip back however was not so perfect :-S. We left Squaw Valley at 4pm and arrived in Mountain View 6 hours later...

Goeric and Marie-Catherine