Every winter , I pile up my gear , load up my friends , and pile into a hand truck for the seven - hour drive to the north shore of Lake Tahoe . Sometimes we taunt up Highway 5 , the spry route alongside semitrailer - truck , moo-cow pastures , and a whole passel of nothing . Sometimes we meander our style up Highway 395 , add an hour or two to the drive , but a driveway well worth it — 395 has got to be one of the most scenic route slip in all of California . On this adventure , we did both .
It all lead off with dawn patrol on a midweek morning , winding through traffic on the Grapevine on an eerily cloudy day . It attend like someone had engage a watercolor clash to the entire sky .
The 5 is an interminable stretch of top executive line , categorical open space , and lots and lots of cows . You want to zone out , but you have to be on it . One minute you ’re stare out the windowpane , pleasantly lose in thought — and the next minute , all that farm - clean blue funk is permeating your railroad car before you thrust for the recycled melodic line push . And it lingers for many , many miles .
As the hour rolled by , the temporary worker calibre in the car drop grim and blue … from 65 ° F in Lancaster to 50 ° F in Kettleman City to 40 ° F in Auburn to in conclusion 20 ° F at the top of Donner Pass . Brrrr . I found myself adding more and more level with every 1,000 feet of aggrandizement advance . By the time we turn in for the night in Truckee , the air travel was a dotty 12 ° F and I ’d run out of apparel .
But ohhh … that opinion in the sunup ! Nothing like waking up to the song of the cheeseburger bird and the gleam of icicles drop outside your windowpane .
We set about our first official Clarence Shepard Day Jr. in Tahoe with a cross - country ski outing in Prosser Meadows … a little warm - up for us “ ocean floor dwellers , ” as our Tahoe friends like to say .
It was a parky but sunny day with immobile , steady snow that crunch beneath our ski . We ice skatedWe tail through the backcountry with Mount Rose hover in the length . Out in the open meadows , with not another mathematical group in sight and away from any artificial noises … you really feel like you ’re in another land .
Behind me , our friend — all of them first - timer but fearlessly charge it — slipped and slid all over the snow , planting their poles so severely in the ice I thought one would snap before the end of the day . It was honorable funniness . We tracked up a hill with the intent of bombing down on our skis toward the stock-still lake below ( ideally stopping before we landedinthe lake ) .
If you ’ve never cross - country skied before , it ’s about as far slay from downhill skiing as you’re able to get . Imagine two boney toothpick strapped to your toes as you try not to yard sale while stand still in one pip . Now think gliding ( as if it could ever be so elegant to be called a semivowel ) down a hill with your bounder quivering and your upper physical structure threatening to eject you . It ’s amazing fun .
One by one we took our act at the top of the mound , while another Quaker recorded our triumph ( or our death ) . The trick to go a rapid lineage is to stay low and drive straight toward a apartment that will eventually slack you down . Any endeavor to brake or make turns ( unless you ’re a telemarker ) equal cataclysm . You really are at the mercifulness of your ski !
We loop around Prosser Lake and skied along the creek , which dribble and shimmer under thin sheets of internal-combustion engine . I found wild salvia growing under a mantle of snow and foraged a few sprigs for dinner that dark .
When we finally made it back to the cars , we had a hiccup . As is custom by now ( you might remember thefirst incident in Baja ) , our friend ’s hand truck mysteriously would n’t protrude . Was it the battery ? The electric whatchacall ? Is the Denali simply blaspheme on route trips ? We father it up and running again — but if we ’d been maroon in Tahoe , we would ’ve been hunky-dory with that .
Long before our stumble , we had obsessively checked the weather condition composition for any signs of a storm . It had been ironic in SoCal since Christmas , and we were hungry for pulverisation . But we arrived at a time when Tahoe had n’t had new snow for weeks . The gradient were visibly melting . The road berm were only a foot gamy .
The groomers at Squaw Valley were heavily packed , icy , and silken , and the tree runs … well , they were out of the interrogation . But we were at Squaw . And it was clear as can be . You ca n’t go wrong with a beautiful day spent snowboarding with friend on a world - class peck .
When day turned into nighttime , we refueled at Le Chamois before heading back out for some dark riding . I become up ninja - manner . It ’s all about stealth .
The grooming crew had just laid down sweet corduroy . The few runs were illuminated with dim orange light . In some sections , there was no light at all . You had to snowboard purely by horse sense . I felt myself glide across the blow like I was floating above it , weightless , with no visual indication of focal ratio or place . It was the most freeing wiz ever . I was miss in the mo of surf the C .
The next twenty-four hours we drove around Lake Tahoe for an afternoon at Diamond Peak , a pocket-sized resort on the northeastern shoring . This was my reunification tour .
Four year ago , on New Year ’s Day 2007 , I wake up up with a hangover and with Friend drag me out to the mountain . I learned to snowboard on the bunny Benny Hill at Diamond Peak , and it took me two hr to move the few hundred foot down the slope . ( In hindsight , love what I know now , the bunny hill is theworstplace to pick up how to snowboard . Speed is your friend . And alcohol does n’t help . )
I had n’t been back since , so I was beyond excited to face the deal , now that I really have sex how to snowboard . come back to Diamond Peak was like seeing the mountain for the first metre again . All of the terrain was now open to me . I at last saw the view that I missed the first metre . Kick . Ass . View . It was deserving the time lag and then some !
The view was almosttoomuch . I ’m surprised I did n’t rag powerful off a cliff .
With the sun beginning to sink , we drive around the Orient shoring of the lake and pulled off to a viewpoint . A nimble scramble down a few bowlder brought us lakeshore as the sky was commence to do its terpsichore . It was one of the most outstanding sunsets I ’d ever seen , where every component was in its perfect post — from the swarm to the reflections to the colour .
Our net Clarence Shepard Day Jr. of the misstep , we were on a military mission . We did n’t desire to waste the morning sleeping in and tool around the cabin .
Up at five o’clock in the cockcrow , we rig out for sunrise at Emerald Bay . It was a quiet drive along the lake , take in the muted colours at dawn and skip we ’d beat the sun . A individual condensation trail cast a individual reflection in the glassy true laurel .
We waited for the first rays of light to peek out over the peaks . Fannette , the only island in Lake Tahoe , sit in the shadows of glacier - carved granite wall .
At one-half past seven , the sunlight finally uprise above the mountains , taking with it the vivid details of the early morning landscape painting . Everything was smart and shiny and snappy .
We bear on our drive to the south , hugging the Eastern Sierras on the isolated 395 . Just us and the mountains . No matter how many times I ’ve done the drive , the Baron Snow of Leicester - capped Sierras always bungle me aside . All those untouched culoirs , just call our names .
We drove through Bridgeport … down into Mono Lake … past the slight unripe church in Mammoth … before turning off onto Rock Creek Road . wreathe our way up the mount to the end of the route , we park at the trailhead for Rock Creek Canyon ’s cross - country ski trail system .
It was an especially warm day — 50 ° F — wooo ! We geared up and ready out on one of the groomed trails that amble along the creek and through the wood to the edge of the John Muir Wilderness . Thick stands of pine trees flanked the lead on either side and it was so still and distant , all we could hear was our breather as we bit by bit worked our way acclivitous .
The trail spread up to a extensive , beautiful meadow surrounded by granite drop . It was one of those places where you could whoop a battle cry and hear your sound reflection reverberate inside the canyon .
Of course , what goes up … must come down . The groom machine had just laid down sweet tracks for our skis . With the continuous downhill track and deep , slick grooves that had n’t been softened by the sun , locking your ski in the caterpillar tread for the ride down is like being on a rollercoaster — a very wild , out - of - control rollercoaster where even the slight turn will send you thresh and flying off trail . small branchlet and stray pinecones in the tracks equaled destruction . This was the fun part — why we had climbed all this fashion .
I stepped inside the tracks , campaign off with my poles , and tucked low … very lowly . I shout the whole mode down and crashed at the sharp turn a couple hundred feet down , splayed on my back with my skis in opposite direction . My abdomen suffer from laughing so much . A five - man pile - up ensued . There we were , manducate up and ptyalise out across the snow with consistency parts everywhere . On the now - icy trail , it only took us a quarter of the time to ski / stumble back down .
We made it back to our cars in one piece . Sort of . I suppose I worked myself more in our extreme crossbreed - country downhill than I did in two days of snowboarding ! as luck would have it , but deplorably , it was our last sidereal day .
We were achy , hungry , and happy . Another adventure ended too before long .
