Whistler is Great, but it ain’t Heavenly

In 1999, after a decade skiing in Austria, Italy and France, my wife and I decided to switch from Europe to the United States for our winter sports “fix”. We chose the beautiful resort of Heavenly on the south shore of Lake Tahoe – and had skied there ever since.

Aside from the size of the skiing area (it is the fifth largest on the North American continent), it had the added bonus of being only a three hour drive to San Francisco. Our skiing holidays therefore became a twin break affair – up to a week in Tahoe, followed by a week or more in the City by the Bay.  On some occasions we even threw in Las Vegas, San Diego or Los Angeles.

Over the course of those two decades we had discussed the possibility of skiing elsewhere. We had always wanted to visit Vancouver in British Columbia, which again could be combined with a trip to San Francisco, so Banff and Whistler became strong candidates. We also researched Vail and Breckenridge in Colorado.

But every time it came to the final decision, we stuck with Heavenly for a number of reasons – the scenic beauty, snowfall records, size and accessibility of skiing area and the proximity to the Californian coast. We usually stayed on or very close to Stateline, the physical border between California and Nevada, where playing in the casinos (admittedly only the penny slots) became an integral part of our apres-ski experience.

But this year we finally took the plunge and abandoned Heavenly for Whistler, not least because it had become prohibitive to stay for any length of time in San Francisco (which we would still visit in the autumn). The decision had been made easier by the recent relocation of English friends, who had originally emigrated from North Kent in 2007, from Ontario to British Columbia. If we were to visit them, which we were keen to do, it made sense to find a ski resort in the “neighbourhood”.

We didn’t make this decision lightly. We knew virtually every inch of the Heavenly ski area and were very comfortable with the environment, whereas Whistler, the largest resort on the continent by some margin, was an unknown quantity. Both the village and terrain were completely unfamiliar to us. Furthermore, the weather forecast for our week’s stay was discouraging, including a fair amount of rain, our least favourite skiing conditions.

So it was with a degree of trepidation that we stepped off the Skylinx shuttle bus after an overnight stop in Vancouver on the third day of April and settled in our Airbnb on the edge of the village centre.  We had already determined that we would use the first day to acclimatise ourselves with the place, collect our pre-ordered lift passes, skis and boots and stock our apartment with provisions from the local grocery.

We had purchased a four day lift pass to span the six days we were staying in the resort. So it was the second of those days before we queued up at the base of the Whistler Village Gondola shortly before 10 o’clock on Friday morning.

Unfortunately, the weather lived up to the forecast – cloudy and misty with alternate rain and snow showers. As a result, we did not venture too far from the area at the top of the mountain on that first day. Poor visibility, unfamiliarity with the terrain and first day nerves contributed to my falling twice on the first run, though after an early morning tantrum, things improved before the persistent wet snow drove us back down the mountain.

The day took a turn for the better when we wandered into the araxi restaurant for ten Reid Island oysters, prepared by Nigel, and a cool glass of Okanagan Pinos Gris. Technically, this was a happy Hour deal, though the resulting bill argued otherwise.

As much as we loved eating out, the cost of doing so had increasingly forced us to eat in our apartment on recent trips. But on this occasion, we had an excellent meal at the Beacon Pub and Eatery in the village square.

With three days left on our lift pass, we had to make a decision as to which days to ski. Our final two days in Whistler had consistently promised the best weather, so we were committed to those. The forecast for both Saturday and Sunday was horrible, with the latter day marginally better. Our original plan of two days on, one off and then two days on needed revision, leaving us skiing for the final three days straight.

Our judgement was vindicated as, even in the village, it rained all day. It did not, however,  deter us strolling around all afternoon, hopping in and out of the attractive coffee houses and gift shops.

Although, in part due to the inclement weather, we had been unadventurous on our first two days on the mountain, we did not want to leave Whistler without taking the awesome and, some might claim, frightening, PEAK 2 PEAK gondola, which had been invisible on our first few days, over to the Blackcomb skiing area.

After a few runs around the top of Whistler, we took the tram on our outward journey between the two largest lift terminals in the world. Although we were not deterred by the prospect of travelling in one of the glass-bottomed cabins, we eschewed the wait and took the first available one.

At this point, I could bore you with lengthy statistics about the PEAK  2 PEAK Gondola, but I will confine it to a few:

• the “longest unsupported span between two cable car towers” 3.024 kilometres (1.88 miles);
• the “highest cable car above ground” 436 metres (1430.45 feet); and
• completes the longest continuous lift system in the world.

Inspired by the ski lifts in Switzerland, at its highest point, it soars 5,280 vertical feet from the valley bottom.

After lunch in the Roundhouse Lodge at the top of the Whistler Village Gondola on the first two days, we ate at the Rendezvous restaurant alongside the top of the Blackcomb Gondola on the last two, whilst exploring several trails around the peak.

Once more, the weather forecast had lived up to expectations, and the conditions on Monday and Tuesday, especially Tuesday, were benign with sunshine replacing the periodic precipitation that had blighted our first couple of days. My skiing improved proportionately, though I still wasn’t wholly comfortable with the unfamiliar surroundings.

Skiing is an expensive pursuit, and I think it is not unreasonable to claim that we might not have had the full value for our outlay, certainly during the first two days when we were still acclimatising ourselves to the vast terrain under wet, gloomy skies. But by Tuesday afternoon, with a deep blue sky and warm sun beaming down upon us, life was good.

So what was our overall verdict? We liked the village of Whistler – it had a lively, friendly atmosphere and boasted some good bars and restaurants. It was likely to be even more boisterous over the coming weekend as preparations were underway for the hosting of the World Ski and Snowboard Festival. We were a little disappointed, however, that its relatively low elevation meant that it rarely saw snow on the ground.

It was clear too that the village was extremely proud of its performance as host to the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics Games, with impressive monuments dotted around town and on the mountain.

And we would certainly ski there again – there are still large parts of the terrain we have still to explore – provided the weather plays ball!

But we missed Heavenly – the lake views, the familiar trails, the mountain restaurants, even the casino bars and the drive up from San Francisco.

The major lesson we learnt, however, from this adventure was that we had to get fit before skiing in future – irrespective of whether we were in Heavenly, Whistler or Avoriaz or La Thuile in Europe. Although we never caught our breath as we had often done in the much higher resort of Heavenly, we ached more each morning and found it generally more tiring than it had been before. Age may have been a factor, but weight was a greater one. In the past, we had always spent the first couple of months of a new year aiming to lose weight and get relatively fit. We hadn’t this year – and it showed.

Ageing and aching are an unavoidable fact of life, but at least we can do our best to minimise their impact if we shed a stone or two and exercise more in those crucial months before we set foot on the slopes again.

 

 

 

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From Waterfront to Hillside: Our San Francisco Journey

In a little over a month my wife and I will be returning to the place we regard as our second home (financial considerations dictate that it will never be our first) – San Francisco. In fact, this will be our twentieth anniversary since we first laid eyes on the imperious Golden Gate Bridge, sampled clam chowder in a sourdough bowl or cracked open a fortune cookie in a Chinatown restaurant.

After our initial trip in 1995 ( http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/you-were-so-right-louis/ ), it would be another three and a half years, and a further three years after that, before we settled into what became a routine of bi-annual visits. We would combine our stay in the city with a skiing trip to Tahoe and a few days elsewhere, such as Las Vegas, San Diego, Death Valley and Yosemite.

Invariably, after the eleven hour flight, we would stay the first night in a budget hotel, having dinner at Calzone’s on Columbus Avenue (but not without a visit to Tower Records first), followed by drinks at the Vesuvio Café nearby. Breakfast would be taken at the Eagle Café on Pier 39 the next morning, and I would buy my holiday reading at the Barnes and Noble bookstore (now long since closed) in Fisherman’s Wharf before driving over the Bay Bridge.

On returning to the city we would stay in a hotel, making the small step up (or was it down) from the Tenderloin to the Civic Center on our second trip before heading to the Holiday Inn at the Wharf for three of the next four vacations.

With each passing visit, we became less inclined to rush around ticking off the guidebook highlights, and began to venture off the beaten path and discover those places, within the city and wider Bay Area, where the only (other) tourists we might encounter were getting wind burn from the top of a tour bus.

It didn’t concern us that we hadn’t jumped a cable car for five years, stepped foot in Nordstrom or Macy’s or taken the rough ride across the bay to Alcatraz. Of course, we didn’t avoid all of the more celebrated spots, always finding time, however short the vacation, to eat at the Cliff House, shop on Haight Street, drink in North Beach and ramble round Golden Gate Park on a Sunday afternoon.

San Francisco quickly became the place where we wanted to live. Without the riches required to buy our way into residency, we would have to content ourselves with alternating between staying in the city (spring and autumn) and the UK (winter and summer) for three months at a time – and only then when we had both retired.

For now, it was a matter of a week here and a fortnight, and, more recently a month, there.

We wanted to “live like locals”, and staying in someone’s (second) home was a good starting point. There would be no maids knocking at the door in the morning anxious to clean the room, no loud, drunken conversations outside the room at 3am and no lift bells ringing or washer / driers humming at all hours.

So in 2010 we abandoned the lazy predictability of hotel living and rented an apartment in Hayes Valley, following that up a year later with similar accommodation in the Western Addition, a short stroll from Alamo Square. The migration west from downtown, however, took a sunny south easterly turn in 2012 when we chose Noe Valley for our base. It was during our second residence there that we discovered Bernal Heights ( http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/a-hike-up-bernal-heights-hill/ ).

Much as we had enjoyed living in the other neighborhoods, we immediately felt an affinity with the quirky, artsy, small town feel of Bernal and rented a cottage there last year. Our first impressions confirmed, we will be returning to that same cottage twice this year for a total of six weeks.

It might not have gone unnoticed that our original bi-annual visit strategy has now become annual – and, at least for this year, twice a year!

Over the past two decades, our time in the city has taken on a different, more relaxed tenor. It has become a familiar and habitual part of our lives, somewhere we have now spent more of our time than anywhere else, other than our permanent UK address.

Moreover, we try, as befitting aspiring locals, to engage  more with the city and its residents on a regular, deeper level. During those interminable months in which we are incarcerated nearly six thousand miles away. we maintain a daily interest in the life of the city, and indeed, I comment on it in a number of online forums.

In addition to my Facebook presence, through which I now enjoy a number of personal as well as virtual friendships (even bumming (pun intended) prime seats at AT & T Park to see “our” Giants), I started a blog on the last day of 2010 which focuses on the history, culture and characters of San Francisco.

And I plan to explore our experiences in more depth in my upcoming book Smiling on a Cloudy Day: An Englishman’s Love Affair with San Francisco, scheduled to be published towards the end of this year.

In our temporary home in the city we neither have to pretend to be what we are not, nor do what we or others feel we ought to do. We can watch the Bay Area news on KRON4 while catching up on household chores in the morning, stroll out to a neighborhood café for brunch, swing by the local wholefoods store and return to the apartment for a bottle of wine on the patio.

All dining options are also possible. We might have dinner in the apartment or we might try out one of the local restaurants. Or we might brave Muni on a trip downtown and eat in Chinatown or North Beach – or even Union Square. We are under no pressure to conform to a set tourist pattern.

What has happened is that our version of San Francisco has shifted, not only geographically but also psychologically, from the waterfront to the southern neighborhoods. In a sense, our journey has mirrored the historical expansion of the earlier city residents from Yerba Buena Cove to the hills.

But, of course, there is still room for those sights that first enthralled us as much as they have millions of others. They are still only a short drive, bus or taxi ride – or even walk – away. We still make a conscious effort to revisit those attractions we might have neglected on recent trips – for example we plan to explore Coit Tower and Grand View Park again after an absence of a few years – as well as sampling new locations altogether such as Glen Canyon, Dogpatch and Potrero Hill.

If that sounds as if living in San Francisco has become routine, less exciting, even a chore, that could not be further from the truth. We have become, in a modest way, San Franciscans, interested in its history, politics, culture and, undeniably, its sport (Go Giants!) – just as we do at home.

I invariably turn to legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Herb Caen, for an authoritative, maybe definitive, view on such matters. Here he ruminates on what makes a San Franciscan:

I don’t think that place of origin or number of years on the scene have anything to do with it really. There are newcomers who become San Franciscans overnight – delighted with and interested in the city’s traditions and history. They can see the Ferry Building for what it represents (not for what it is), they are fascinated with the sagas of Sharons, Ralstons, Floods and Crockers, they savor the uniqueness of cable car and foghorn. By the same token, I know natives who will never be San Franciscans if they outlive Methusalah. To them a cable car is a traffic obstruction, the fog is something that keeps them from getting a tan, and Los Angeles is where they really know how to Get Things Done.

Increasingly, our hosts  marvel at our knowledge of, and adoration for, the city. I doubt, however, that the more strident members of online forums would agree with Caen’s loose, but characteristically generous, sentiments here, but I like to feel that we have moved beyond being “sophisticated tourists” who are “charmed and fascinated” by the city to warrant that title of “honorary San Franciscans”.

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Getting Lucky in Tahoe

We had not skied Heavenly since 2011, although we had visited in both of the intervening years.

In 2012, a planned three day break slotted between visits to San Francisco coincided with both of us contracting flu and being physically too weak to ski. And last June, logs, pipes and assorted wooden debris were all that lay on the mountain.

And for much of this winter the signs were ominous.

The guaranteed snow levels normally associated with Tahoe, and Heavenly in particular, had failed to materialise. Every day since Christmas, we scoured the webcams and weather forecasts, only to discover that many of the lifts and trails remained closed and the famed snow making operation was being pressed into overdrive.

We have always skied late in the season in the expectation that a) the snow would be plentiful and b) spring sunshine would dominate. So when we heard when we arrived in San Francisco at the beginning of the week that the long awaited snowfall would be pulling into town at the same time as us, and staying for the duration, we had mixed feelings.

But we have been incredibly lucky.

We had purchased a four day lift pass, taking the Saturday off when the worst (or best depending upon your point of view) of the storms was projected to arrive.

And it worked to perfection.

Although, with the exception of our final day, sun was in short supply, the wind that often affects resort operations, closing the higher lifts and restricting the capacity of skiers and riders to travel between the Nevada and California sides, was equally ineffective.

The intermittent gloom and smattering of snow flurries of the first couple of days enabled just to take some satisfyingly moody photographs.

We were able to ski virtually the entire mountain over the four days. Only on the first day were we prevented from cruising both states, being confined to the California side due to the closure of the Tamarack chair. This was welcome, however, as we tend to spend more time on the longer trails in Nevada. With the Sky Express chair leading to the highest point in the resort open, we were allowed to spend time on our favourite trail, Ridge, which arguably provides the best views of the lake, and the High Five trail that we had not skied before.

We also managed morning hot chocolate stops and lunch breaks at all the major mountain lodges – California, Tamarack (pictured), East Peak, Sky Deck and Stagecoach – that were open.

My only regret?

Not having the presence of mind to reach for the camera as Janet struggled to get to her feet, having fallen on the Galaxy trail only minutes after she had joyfully proclaimed ONE NIL when I had suffered a similar indignity.

Ah well, you can’t have it all.

We may not have seen the last of the snow as we look set to grapple with the next big storm on our return to San Francisco tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Heading Noe where

‘Tis the night before the start of our our tenth – and longest – stay in San Francisco. And the first to be spent in summer in the enchanted city.

We spent a week in the southern neighbourhood of Noe Valley last spring, and whilst much of that time we were elsewhere, we enjoyed its relaxing, civilised atmosphere so much that, when we had to decide where to rent an apartment for four weeks in June this year, we chose it above other likely candidates such as the Mission and the Sunset . This will enable us to acquaint ourselves more with the neighbourhood and adjoining districts as well as providing a good base for visiting other parts of the Bay Area, familiar and previously unexplored alike.

So where is Noe Valley? And what we have let ourselves in for by living there? It sits immediately south of the Castro and east of the Mission in a sunny spot protected from the fog by steep hills on three sides. Its borders are broadly defined as between 20th and 22nd Street to the north, 30th Street to the south, Dolores to the east and Grand View Avenue to the west. Our apartment is on 28th Street between Church and Dolores.

A look at a map of the greater San Francisco area would suggest that it is relatively remote, and it is undeniably off the tourist trail. But public transit and local roads render it easily accessible to downtown and the South Bay respectively. The J Church MUNI Metro line was our constant companion on our previous trip and will be so again, at least for the first half of our stay before we hire a car for the trip to Tahoe.

Noe Valley is a quiet but cosmopolitan residential neighbourhood with a classy small town feel. Its preponderance of comfortable, even affluent, young families has lead to a change in its nickname from the hippie-inspired “Granola Valley” in the seventies to “Stroller Alley” today. But it also attracts couples and singles of all persuasions, notably gay and lesbian migrants from the Castro. A healthy number of artists and writers complete a sophisticated demographic. The population of approximately 21,000 comprises 70% white, 15% Hispanic and 7% Asian, with the remaining 8% coming from all corners of the globe.

It is blessed with a significant number of classic two storey Victorian and Edwardian homes. Broad streets and brightly coloured exteriors have the writers of guidebooks reaching for words like “cute” and “quaint”. Property prices are inevitably expensive.

The neighbourhood gets its name from José de Jésus Noé, the last Mexican alcade (Mayor) of Yerba Buena, the original name for San Francisco. He owned the land as part of his Rancho San Miguel but sold it to John Meirs Horner in 1854. Horner laid out many of the wide streets we enjoy today, and the name “Horner’s Addition” is still used for tax purposes by the city assessor’s office.

The main development of what was traditionally a working class neighbourhood came in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, notably after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. Today, its interest for outsiders lies essentially in the eclectic shopping and dining experience to be found along the stretches of 24th Street from Castro to Church and Diamond to Dolores. Coffee shops, restaurants, one of a kind clothing and gift stores and bookshops abound, along with one of the best farmers’ markets in the city.

This will be our fourth apartment – the first two were in Hayes Valley and North of the Panhandle (NOPA) – and, as with previous years, our aim is to blend as far as possible into the local community for the duration. With four weeks at our disposal on this occasion, our “live like locals” strategy has more chance of success than in previous years where we have stayed for no more than a fortnight. We are particularly looking forward to hiking up Bernal Heights, Twin Peaks and Buena Vista Park, as well as reacquainting ourselves with the Mission.

But the extended stay still enables us to satisfy our tourist cravings and revisit the usual suspects such as Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, Golden Gate Park , Beach Blanket Babylon and Haight Ashbury, and, of course, three pilgrimages to AT & T Park to support the Giants in their (currently faltering~) hunt for back to back World Series titles. Any trip would not be complete without expanding our understanding of the Bay Area, so Berkeley, the Zoo, Castro Theater and the de Young Museum, all places we have criminally neglected until now, are on our list.

Having always , with the exception of our first visit in October, visited in spring, we will be also be able to throw ourselves into four of San Francisco’s celebrated annual events – the Haight Ashbury Street Fair, North Beach Festival, Stern Grove Festival and San Francisco Pride.

Our last two vacations have coincided with Crosby and Nash and Elvis Costello gigs at the Warfield. This year, we move to the waterfront at Pier 27/29 where we have tickets for the concert being given by the Steve Miller Band and the Doobie Brothers at the America’s Cup Pavilion. And finally, a short detour to Tahoe is also scheduled.

I hadn’t actually realised until I wrote this just how busy we are going to be!

San Francisco – your “wandering one” is coming home again.  

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It’s A Life

Born in October 1952 on the day tea rationing ended in Britain (good timing that, given my mother’s obsession – and subsequently mine – with the brew) and, as an only child, I enjoyed a happy childhood, revolving mainly around football and cricket.  I had the good fortune of growing up during the sixties, the music of which provided a thrilling soundtrack to my that period.

I attained a BA (Honours) in English and European Literature at Essex University, writing my dissertation on the novel At Swim-Two-Birds by Irish novelist and journalist Flann O’Brien.  This was followed by studying towards an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature at Leeds, majoring on James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and W.B.Yeats, including writing a treatise on the novels of Patrick Kavanagh (The Green Fool and Tarry Flynn).

Eventually, I exchanged academia – via portering in a major department store and “making” sultana cookies and other exotic (for the time) biscuits – for the last refuge of the modern scoundrel and joined the UK civil service in March 1980.  I subsequently spent 29 years in the Department for Work and Pensions and its many antecedents, latterly in human resources and diversity before poaching early retirement in March 2009.

My interest in the subject led me to undertake a Level 3 BTEC Advanced Certificate in Travel and Tourism via home learning.  I completed the course in December 2010, achieving a Distinction in all three elements – understanding the travel and tourism industry, tourist destinations and tour operations.  My ambition now is to concentrate on writing and, hopefully, to publish on a regular basis.  I have been focusing principally on my passions of San Francisco, cricket and travel, though I am not able to resist on pontificating on life in general from time to time.

This blog has now been active for nearly two and a half years. But I want to do more than that. At present, I am in the final throes of co-writing a book on the centenary of Kent County Cricket Club’s fourth County Championship title in eight years, and future writing projects include a series of short stories based in San Francisco and an expansion of our U.S. road trip diary of September / October last year.

Aside from the above topics, my other serious interests are walking, skiing, baseball (a fan from afar of the San Francisco Giants), association football (a life long fan of Gillingham), music (principally folk, blues, country and West Coast rock borne of the original Summer of Love in 1967), going to the theatre and eating out.

I feel extremely grateful to have the health and energy to pursue all of those interests, as I am also for the support and encouragement of my wonderful wife Janet whom I married in Vegas on Halloween 2009 after 27 years together (that makes it 31 now!).

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That Was the Skiing Holiday that Wasn’t

We hadn’t intended to ski this year.

And we didn’t.

But between those two statements lay a four month long gallimaufry of resolution, indecision, confusion, excitement, frustration, relief, misery, hope and resignation.

Following last year’s trip, our seventh, to Heavenly ski resort on the southern shore of Lake Tahoe, we decided to give skiing, at least in the USA, a miss this year, and perhaps even next.

But as the British summer shrugged its way into autumn, and our equal determination not to visit San Francisco this year,  dissipated, the prospect of not skiing at all became increasingly unpalatable.

With a major holiday planned for later in the year, we could not afford – in both senses of the word – more than two weeks away. We arranged, therefore, to spend a week in an apartment in San Francisco, drive up to Tahoe for four nights, skiing for three days, before returning to the city for the final weekend prior to flying home. Flights and accommodation were duly booked in the New Year, the lateness of which illustrated how we had prevaricated about going at all.

I have written elsewhere that my wife and I are “fair weather” skiers, liking nothing better than cruising perfectly manicured trails in warm spring sunshine. With that in mind, we booked to ski Heavenly between Wednesday 18th and Friday 20th April inclusive, providing us, we hoped, with a felicitous combination of good weather and a healthy accumulation of snow (2011 had been a record year).

So we were “sorted”, looking forward to what was fast becoming our annual American skiing fix.

Or so we thought, for that’s when it all started to unravel.

In deciding to ski late in the season, we’d given no thought to when the resort might be closing. After all, last year it had remained open until early May and only a few days prior to that the previous year. We were not only going to enjoy wonderful weather and spring conditions but would also get some great end of season bargains in the shops. 

I suppose we should have seen the warning signs earlier in the season as snowfall had been uncommonly sparse, weeks passing with barely a single natural flake bedding down with the undeniably impressive but limited layer of artificial snow provided by the resort’s convoy of groomers. Much of the skiing terrain remained closed.

But even at the end of February there appeared to be no cause for concern. Major storms were surely lining up out in the Pacific, ready to deposit the white stuff soon enough. And Heavenly would be prepared to stay open as long as possible to compensate for the relatively poor conditions of December through to March. Wouldn’t it?

How wrong we were.

Firstly, we discovered that Heavenly had planned all along to close on Sunday 15th April – nearly three weeks earlier than last year and, more alarmingly, THREE DAYS BEFORE we were due to arrive! A succession of frantic e-mails, Facebook and Twitter messages over the next 24 hours confirmed this to be the case.

At least we had not incurred great expense at this stage – just the first night’s accommodation, which could be cancelled up to 72 hours before arrival anyway. Unusually (we must have known), we had not booked our lift tickets and we would not obviously have hired equipment until we were in the resort.

But what were we going to do?

I devised eight alternative options for the middle leg of the vacation. These included remaining in San Francisco, driving down the coast and spending nights in San Luis Obispo, Carmel and Monterey, or in the opposite direction via Mendocino and Bodega Bay, even still travelling to South Lake Tahoe but amusing ourselves in other ways.

But the thought of not skiing at all, when the conditions were likely to be the best they had been all season, was too painful to contemplate. And, of course, you guessed it – by this time, those slothful storm systems had swung into town with a vengeance, depositing seven feet of snow in a week!

Having decided that we had, if we could, to ski somewhere, we found ourselves forced into doing what we had often spoken about but never got around to doing before – slide down some other slopes than Heavenly’s.

So perhaps it was all a blessing after all – provided we could find other resorts that were open whilst we were in the area.

The next few weeks were spent anxiously trawling the websites of, and sending e mails to, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Kirkwood, Homewood, Alpine Meadows, Sugarbowl and Squaw Valley to establish what their closure plans were.

Whilst, in one respect, we were now becoming increasingly excited at the prospect of skiing elsewhere, this threw up several practical issues. For example, if we were to ski near the north end of the lake, we would need to find alternative accommodation, and it was extremely limited in some resorts, particularly at such a late stage. We would also need to take a different route to the one we were accustomed to to get to the lake.

The fact that we would be skiing only a day, possibly two, at a new resort would also mean we would be unfamiliar with everything there – the terrain, transport, equipment hire and so on  – to the extent hat we might not derive much enjoyment from it.

But beggars can’t be choosers, and, after all, it meant we could ski.

And then……Heavenly decided to extend its season!

Great!

We could now avoid all the complications of staying and skiing elsewhere and return to our familiar, much loved Plan A of skiing in Heavenly for three days.

Or so we thought.

Rather than extending by a full perhaps two, to allow its customers to enjoy the fresh snow, the resort proposed to close as planned on 15th April and reopen for the next two weekends only (Friday to Sunday inclusive). The upshot of this would be that we would have ONE day in which to ski!

Again we considered different scenarios, including skiing only on the Friday, our last day. Better than nothing.

But we rather liked the idea now of skiing somewhere else too, and plumped for a day at nearby Sierra-at-Tahoe.

Now, neither of us had been fully fit in our last couple of days in San Francisco, suffering from sore throats, coughing, headaches and general tiredness. So we decided that two days skiing would be sufficient.

The final plan now went like this. As it was conveniently located just off the I-50, we would call into Sierra-at-Tahoe on our drive from San Francisco on Tuesday and familiarise ourselves with the resort. We would then take our first full day off and perhaps drive to Carson City, before skiing at Sierra on Thursday and Heavenly on Friday.

What could now go wrong? After the twists and turns, and mangled emotions, of the past three months, we were going to be skiing for two days, one of which was going to be at, for us, a new, exciting resort, and the forecast was for brilliant blue skies and warm temperatures.

Well, one three letter word ending in a vowel was about to be replaced by another and destroy those plans. 

Flu.

On the journey to South Lake Tahoe, we both started to deteriorate dramatically, to the extent not only that we abandoned the diversion via Sierra-at-Tahoe, but that we were only able to leave our room – reluctantly – in the next 48 hours to stock up on pharmaceutical supplies (and the occasional Starbuck’s). Dinner on our first evening consisted of a $1 packet of Dorito’s from the vending machine along the corridor.

It was only the last – fourth – night that we were both able to do any justice to an evening meal when we dragged ourselves to the Hard Rock Café in our hotel. Even then, we had had to cancel our reservation beforehand at the Riva Grill. We did manage, however, to drive around the lake during the day, as the last post testifies.

We had both been so debilitated during our stay that walking alone proved a challenge. As much as we wanted to, we could not have skiied. 

At least we saved on meals, ski hire and lift tickets  – although the colourful cocktail of pills, infusions and liquids – enough to have taken the weight of our baggage over the allowance had we been flying back to San Francisco – were not cheap!

We hadn’t intended to ski this year.

And we didn’t.

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The Fairest Picture

With the skiing leg of our recent trip to California decimated by illness (the subject of an upcoming post), we took the opportunity of the glorious spring weather on our last day in South Lake Tahoe to finally realise a decade long ambition of driving round the entirety the lake.

Below are some of the photos we took, which I hope provide some illustration as to why Mark Twain claimed that “it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords”.

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San Francisco Here is Your Wandering One – Again

“I’m coming home again…..never to roam again” the song continues. Well, sadly, I will be roaming back to the UK in no time, but not until I have spent the next fortnight back in the “one in all the Golden West”.

Many of my previous posts attest to my love for The City, especially  http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/my-san-francisco-top-ten/ .

Those of you who have stayed the course with me will be relieved to learn that I’m not going to dribble on about cable cars, bay views and hippie Haight in this post – well I might find myself unable to avoid rapping a little on the last one……..man.

No, as our upcoming ninth trip approaches, this post looks ahead to some of the less touristic experiences that await us. Some are perennial joys whilst others will be savoured for the first time.

In the best “traditions” of TV reality shows (so I am reliably informed), they are presented in no particular order:

1. Eating Sourdough bread

Taking that first bite from an authentic sourdough loaf will almost certainly be the first, and last, taste sensation of our visit. Whilst, allegedly, I can purchase sourdough bread from a farmer’s market or wholefoods supplier in the more enlightened towns and cities of the British Isles, it will not be made from the Boudin “mother dough” and, therefore, not carry the unmistakably tangy taste of the San Francisco original.

If you want to read more about the genesis of the Boudin sourdough, you can do worse (just) than read my article at:

http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/great-san-franciscan-characters-13-isidore-boudin/

2. Riding on the MUNI

“I get sourdough bread but MUNI – are  you crazy?” I hear any resident or informed visitor exclaim. “The “service” is totally unreliable, the drivers insolent and a sizeable number of its customers are so weird that they’d fail the audition for any self-respecting freak show”.

Ah, but there be the rub, me hearties. It is the “all human life is there” quality that makes it so endearing – provided, of course, that you’re not planning to be any place soon or are of a squeamish disposition.

I wrote about one particularly entertaining and ingenious tableau in my diary from last year’s vacation:

http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/western-diary-day-17-hittin-the-heights-and-muni-delights/ .

3. Watching the Giants play an MLB game at AT & T Park

Two actually – the (Pittsburgh) Pirates on Opening Night, complete with fireworks, on Saturday 14th April and the (Philadelphia) Phillies two nights later. An earlier post documented my initiation into baseball, and following the San Francisco Giants in particular:

http://www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/bitten-by-the-giants-baseball-bug/

Visiting the City that little bit later this year has meant that we can finally graduate from attending desultory pre-season games featuring squad players to joining a full house crowd at a “real” game, or rather two, with heavy hitters, or rather pitchers, such as Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.

Oh, and eating those fabulous garlic fries – and taking cover from the dive bombing seagulls towards the end of the game.

4. Getting to Know New Neighbourhoods

After successful stays in Hayes Valley and North of the Panhandle in the past couple of years, we are staying further south this year by renting an apartment for the first week in Noe Valley, or “Stroller Valley” as it is affectionately known for the preponderance of resident families with young children.

We aim to “stay local” as much as possible that week, exploring unfamiliar neighbourhoods such as Noe Valley itself and semi-mountainous Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill and Twin Peaks, as well as re-familiarising ourselves in particular with the Castro and Mission districts, much neglected on our previous trips. In fact, we are venturing further out of the City than we have ever done before, though public transport will whisk us briskly downtown should we, in the unlikely event, crave a fix of the wharf or corporate shopping at any time (that said, our two appointments with the Giants will steer us towards the bay on those days).

5. The Flower Power Walking Tour

For all my reverence for the Dead, the Airplane and the late sixties San Francisco music scene, I have resisted, in the past, signing up for the flower power walking tour of Haight-Ashbury, expecting it to be too clichéd, preferring to truck around the area on my own. But the testimonials are so compelling, and the bona fides of the individuals conducting the tour so intriguing (they lived through the Summer of Love), that I now anticipate it with relish.

6. Exploring the Old and Public San Francisco

Aside from our initial, guided trip 17 years ago, we have never explored Nob Hill in any detail. We have clanked past it on the California and Powell/ Mason and Powell/Hyde cable cars (sorry, I know I promised I wouldn’t mention them) many times but given little heed to Grace Cathedral, Huntington Park or the grand hotels – until now.

We will aim to combine that with a morning skulking as much of the public buildings that comprise the Civic Center as we are permitted to enter. I am particularly keen to visit the public library.

7. Breakfast with KRON4

Preparing for the day ahead in San Francisco has never been complete without the accompaniment of local TV station, KRON4, informing me of the weather prospects, the state of the “Bay Bridge commute” or the latest Giants news. Whilst Darya Folsom is my favourite presenter, I’ll also confess to having followed Sal Castenada’s traffic reports on rival station KTVU too for many years.

8. Skiing the Sierras

The full story of our miscalculation over the short skiing leg of our trip in Lake Tahoe will have to wait for another day. Suffice to say that the outcome is that we will finally be forced out of our customary torpor and ski somewhere other than Heavenly this time. Sierra-at-Tahoe and Kirkwood beware.

We return to the City for the final three nights of the trip, staying in a hotel on Fisherman’s Wharf. Our sixth performance of Beach Blanket Babylon and meals at two of our favourite eating places, the North Beach Restaurant and Cliff House await. And much else besides.

So, San Francisco, “open your Golden Gate”, don’t let this supplicant !wait outside your door”.

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Twenty Nine Miles – Or the Night We Almost Died

It was March 2002, a mere half year since that brilliant, terrible morning in New York City that changed our lives forever. The world, and especially the United States, remained in a state of anxiety and foreboding about the direction in which it was moving.

Security was tight, therefore, as we landed at San Francisco International Airport on a damp, dismal Tuesday afternoon.  With an eleven hour flight and early check-in, we had been travelling already for eighteen hours. We were already regretting the decision to drive the 180 miles direct to South Lake Tahoe that evening for our holiday in Heavenly ski resort.

After dragging our heavy luggage from the arrivals hall to the car hire centre at the far side of the airport, we were informed that a large storm was approaching Tahoe, and advised that we should seriously consider upgrading to a 4×4 vehicle.  Whilst subsequent experience has taught us that this is a regular ploy to extract a significant chunk out of our holiday spending budget before we have even left the terminal, this appeared a more plausible scenario on this occasion.  However, we declined the upgrade but collected our obligatory snow chains before searching for our car.

We drove away from the airport at around 4pm, the beginning of the evening commute, just as the rain that had been threatening since our arrival set in.  Experience had taught us that rain at this level meant snow at much higher elevations.  How would we be able to attach the snow chains to the car?  We had never done it before.  And when would we know it was the right time to do so? Fortunately, at a small price (this is America after all), these decisions were made for us later in the journey.

The run to the Bay Bridge was frenetic, and, as the rain got heavier, so did the traffic.  Our wipers were working overtime through the stretch of the I-80 from the Oakland end of the bridge past Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, Vallejo, Bernicia, Fairfield, Vacaville, Dixon, Davis and all the way to Sacramento when we joined the US 50.  Between Folsom and Placerville the incessant rain turned to sleet and then full-blown snow, obscuring the intermittent views of the Sierra Nevada mountains that we would customarily enjoy.

The road narrowed from a relatively straight freeway to a constantly twisting single lane, and the tyres struggled to cope with the ever-thickening snow.  As quickly as they had created a groove it was covered over again, awaiting the next vehicle to attempt to carve through it.  We had only, in terms of distance, a sixth of our journey left, but we feared that this would be the most challenging and potentially frightening part of the journey.

We passed a handful of “lookouts” with their signs warning of “snow removal equipment” and of snow chain installers at work. It was only, however, when we reached the distance marker denoting that South Lake Tahoe was twenty nine miles away, that we were brusquely hailed down by the abominable snowman who installed the chains efficiently if a little grumpily. We may have been another $20 light but a small measure of reassurance had been restored.

After all, it was “only” twenty nine miles wasn’t it?  How bad could it be?

We’d negotiated steep mountain passes in the Alps before, hadn’t we? Of course we had, piece of cake then.

Oh, but hold on a minute, we’d been sat on a coach whilst an experienced native of the region took the wheel. Not so simple then.

Yes, but, once this was over, we had a hot meal and a stiff drink awaiting us on our arrival in South Lake Tahoe. And just think how exciting it will be to ski on all this fresh powder tomorrow morning.

British stiff upper lips notwithstanding, we both silently fought our fears.

The snow was now pounding against the windscreen, at least that is what we assumed was accounting for the only sound assaulting the silence high in the mountains. The intermittent cracks in the white darkness, were the headlights of oncoming trucks hurtling past in the opposite direction. The drivers had seen it all before.

Although we could hardly have been moving more slowly, no other vehicle passed us on the entire journey. There had been seven others at the lookout when our snow chains had been installed. Where could they have gone? There was no other road to take. Perhaps they had given up for the night – something we had not for one second contemplated, however bad it got, because that would have been even more dangerous.  We had to press on – we may have been doing barely ten miles an hour at this point, but every rotation of those snow chained gripping tyres got us a little closer.

We may not have been able either to rationalise or articulate it in such terms at the time, but we had both adopted an, at least outwardly, calm, practical demeanour – Janet maintaining a steady, straight course, building fresh, deep grooves in the snow whilst I, as much by intuition than calculation, assessed our proximity to the side of the road, instructing her to make slight adjustments to the car’s position as necessary. Hearts skipped a beat every time I recommended a small movement to the middle of the narrow road just as a truck sped past, or what seemed, directly at, us!

The alternative was worse. The slightest twitch to the right would have had us plunging into the Eldorado National Forest. The sporadic fencing would not only have failed to prevent our fall, but also it was not visible as a guide to our proximity to the edge.

Height markers were barely decipherable on the hairpin bends, though we managed to make out Strawberry at 5,800 and Camp Sacramento at 6,500 feet respectively, providing comfort that we were closing in on the highest point of Echo Summit at 7,377 feet.

But our journey was not over. The snow chains had done their job so far, but now we were beginning our steep descent towards South Lake Tahoe.  Would the brakes work?  Would the chains grip the road sufficiently to prevent us running away?  Again, these thoughts went simultaneously through our minds, though nothing was spoken other than the now customary “steer slightly towards the middle” and “keep straight” admonitions from the passenger seat.

Our unease was unwarranted.  The chains performed impeccably as we descended smoothly towards our destination, braking at regular intervals.  The final challenge was to negotiate the steep, twisting hill that drops down to the lake basin. Relief, even euphoria took hold as the “Y”, the intersection between South Lake Tahoe Boulevard and the continuation of I-50 up the western side of the lake came into view.  Never had we been so grateful to see the welcoming neon of McDonald’s and Starbucks.

During the descent the snowfall had relented, and the home straight into Stateline was just wet.  That final twenty nine miles had taken four hours to negotiate which meant that, by the time we had checked into the Embassy Suites resort, there was no hot food available.  But after 25 hours travelling we were too weary to venture out, so decided to just have a drink before retiring.

Over a glass or two we spoke for the first time of our ordeal, and how composed and worried at the same time we had been. We resolved that we would make tomorrow our non-skiing day.  As it happened, that decision was academic as the four feet of snow and high winds closed the resort anyway, allowing us to spend the day recovering and re-acclimatising ourselves to the area.

This was not to be the only harrowing experience of this particular holiday, though the week’s skiing went relatively smoothly after that. We have made the same drive six times since that night, but, sensibly, only during the day after a night’s rest in San Francisco.  And the weather has, ironically, been fine on each occasion.

But there’s always the next time.

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Heavenly Thoughts Returning

Firstly, if you have landed on this site expecting subject matter a tad more racy or devotional than skiing, please leave now!

After spending our formative skiing years in Europe, we decided in 1999 to try America for our winter vacation. Lake Tahoe caught our imagination, not only because of its innate beauty and impressive snowfall record, but because it could comfortably be combined with a trip to San Francisco (and other parts of both California and Nevada).

We fell in love with Heavenly and the unique California / Nevada Stateline atmosphere instantly, and despite acknowledging that we should expand our skiing experience to the Rockies or Canada, we have remained loyal to it ever since.  We were even on the verge one year of booking Whistler or Banff and spending our “city time” in Vancouver, but when push came to shove, we hadn’t the heart to abandon Heavenly.

Nor, in the face of numerous recommendations from people on chairlifts, in restaurants and on the street, have we skiied a single day in any of the other Tahoe resorts. Lame excuse though it may seem, we have, in a sense, not wanted to “waste” one of our precious skiing days at Northstar, Squaw Valley or Sierra-at-Tahoe.  And where would we get a better breakfast than at the Driftwood Cafe in the village centre, or seafood dinner at the Riva Grill by the south shore of the lake? 

 

After our initial vacation we returned in 2002, followed by further trips in ’04, ’06, ’08 and ’10.  With a mountain that rises to over 10,000 feet and the largest snowmaking and grooming operation on Lake Tahoe if Mother Nature should fail to deliver, snow conditions have always been excellent. The weather during our stays has, however, been less predictable (for example, warm sunshine in ’04 and incessant snowfall in ’06, including 4 feet the night before we were heading for Vegas).

The biennial strategy collapsed last year when we went again just 12 months after our last trip. This appeared at first to be a smart move as a record season was already in full swing when we arrived in early March. Now, we confess to being fair weather skiers, always going relatively late in the season, initially in late February, more latterly in mid March (and now April!). The theory is that there will not only have been substantial accumulations of snow already, but that the weather will have warmed up. Spring in San Francisco can be very pleasant too.

So we scanned the web cams and drooled over the daily Another Heavenly Morning broadcast on the internet, watching the snowfall count escalating. Surely, this will have abated and Spring will have arrived with a swagger by the time we pitched up in the resort, allowing us to enjoy several days cruising on a deep snow base in balmy, sun-soaked weather?

No chance! As the travel diary on this blog demonstrated (links below) the only thing we saw was snow, and, in the words of A.A. Milne, it just “kept on snowing”, even after we had left for San Francisco towards the end of the month:

www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/western-diary-day-3-janet-falls-over/

www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/western-diary-day-4-Janet-falls-over-again-and-Tony-gets lost/

www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/western-diary-day-5-the-more-it-snows-tiddley-pom/

www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/western-diary-day-6-i-fall-over-and-Janet-loses-her-backpack/

The year did, indeed, turn out to be a record one with a total 0f 529 inches snowfall (the average is anywhere between 300 and 500). But, after such a disappointing experience, we vowed that we would now leave it a couple of years before returning to Heavenly, perhaps even going back in the interim to getting our skiing fix in Europe again.  

But here we are in mid January and the itch needs scratching again (problematic when you are plodding around with several layers of clothing on, including an esapecially fetching pair of tights). The lure of both Heavenly and San Francisco has become too much, causing us to alter our vacation plans for the year. The four weeks travelling around the canyons and National Parks of the West to celebrate my 60th birthday later in the year has now contracted to two.

We are undaunted by the uncharacteristically puny snowfall so far this year. Although the resort has been open every day since November 18th, the total snow for the season has only reached 13 inches (lower slopes) to 22 inches (upper elevations), and the base depth is just 18 to 24 inches. Only 215 acres out of a total of 4800, and 27 of the 97 runs (trails), are currently open.  

Limited terrain aside, the resort has still managed to provide high quality, if limited, snow in fine weather, with the army of “midnight riders” (groomers) putting in more than 1,200 snowmaking hours. And we have faith that the storms will come. In fact, as I pen this article, 3-6 feet is being forecast for the next week. 

It can snow now until early April as far as we are concerned. But please, let’s have a few days sunshine after that!

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