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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years ago

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chapter two: the art whore

Careful not to wake Alex, Sam and Eric crept out of the trailer and into the pure white snow that resided outside of the trailer: the plows had already gone through and kept it all away from the wheel rims and thus they could go forth on the road, albeit with a bit of struggle. As she climbed out of there in her boots and heavy coat wrapped around her pajamas, she peered up at the early morning sky, all inky and heavy with those swirling storm clouds overhead. For all she knew, more snow was upon them.

Sam adjusted the lapels on the coat before she went any further towards the car: meanwhile, Eric shut the trailer door behind him with a bit of ease so it wouldn’t awaken Alex.

Sam unlocked the car, and all the while, she almost lost her balance with a step into a thick pocket of snow closest to the driver’s side door.

“You alright over there?” Eric called to her.

“Yeah, it was just a little bit deep over here,” she assured him as she climbed into the seat. She knocked her feet together and brushed off her legs before she slipped inside there; he did the same and then he ran his hand over the crown of his head even though it wasn’t snowing again at the moment.

“So do you think we can just roll on out of here, willy-nilly?” he asked her, out of breath.

“Yeah, pretty much,” she replied as she rubbed her hands together. “The plows took care of it all and since we pitched up underneath a tree, it could be way worse. My one concern is the trailer could jackknife as we’re headed back for the highway. And by the way, do we wanna go to Tom’s Place or Mammoth Lakes?”

“Which one’s closer?”

“Mammoth. Yeah, I promised Alex that we’d go to Tom’s Place at some point, but I don’t really want to drive back around Lake Crowley in the dark and with a bunch of snow on the ground.”

“There’s more to do over in Mammoth, too, I would think,” Eric said as he strapped himself into the seat and hunkered down to keep warm.

“Oh yeah, there’s a few thousand people over there, compared to the couple hundred the other way. Maybe when it’s lighter outside and Alex is awake, we can treat ourselves to some cobbler.”

“But for now, it’s breakfast,” he declared.

“It’s breakfast!” she echoed.

Careful not to upset the trailer, Sam drove up the road, back towards the airport and ultimately the highway, which still stood dark and vacant even with the sunrise upon them. Once she started on the highway once again, the first flurries fluttered down before the headlights. Eric shifted his weight in the seat next to her, but she knew it was more from a lack of heat in the car rather than a feeling of anxiety over the black road stretched before them.

The trailer lumbered behind them; all the while, she was glad that she had packed up all the tools and utensils prior to heading for bed. It was either that or stay there under the tree and freeze out of sheer boredom until Alex woke up, and she swore that that was the case with the whole thing. That didn’t stop Eric from giggling about it, however.

“Wake up to a nice Skolnick frittata,” he joked. “Or an Alex omelette with eggs over easy.”

She quietly scoffed at that, but she then thought of all the ginger snaps Alex had eaten up to that point.

“Do the Skolnick shake,” she said, which brought a big laugh out of him.

“The Skolnick shake—that sounds like a dance rather than a thing you eat,” he proclaimed.

“It’s chocolate and vanilla and filled with pieces of ginger snaps and makes you say 'oy vey' afterwards.”

He laughed out loud again; Sam tapped on the brakes right as signs for Mammoth Lakes emerged from the snowy darkness. Even though there wasn't any ice on the road, she needn't risk it. Not with the trailer right behind the car like that.

Lucky for her and Eric, there was no one else on the road so she babied the whole thing to the first exit into the little town underneath Mammoth Mountain, which loomed there in the darkness like a sleeping beast. The highway exit led onto Meridian Boulevard: the trailer lingered right behind them as if it never left the spot underneath the tree. She figured that if nothing, the gentle sway of it all along the road would rock Alex further to sleep.

The next stoplight up, and she spotted a cafe right across the street from there.

“Place right there has billiards,” Eric pointed out. Sam flashed back on when she and Alex hung out together in the back room with nothing more than a few brewskies and a billiards table.

“Let's do billiards together,” he suggested.

“I also saw a clothing shop as we were coming into town—I really wanna try on some clothes later on. You want to do that with me?”

“As long as I don't have to try anything on,” he told her.

“You won't if you don't wanna,” she pointed out. “Can I tell you something?”

“Uh—yeah? Does it mean I have to keep it a secret from Alex?”

“Well, I just think of the date you proposed to me a while back,” she recalled as she drummed her thumbs on the rim of the steering wheel. She took a glimpse over at him and his sinking down into the seat, as if he hid away from her.

“Eric, I've slept with three guys and had phony staged sex with Chuck,” she told him, “—I think I know what this whole thing means.”

The light turned green and they lunged ahead to the curb up ahead.

“Who have you slept with?” he asked her in a small voice.

“You really wanna go there?” she demanded.

“Yes. Before we go any further with it, I deserve to know whom you've played around with.”

“Alex, Greg, and Joey,” she replied without hesitation.

“Greg?” He raised his eyebrows at that. “You fooled around with Greg?”

“Yes. Let's just say we had a little fun putting our mouths around each other.”

Eric gaped at her because of that.

“Fuck me sideways,” he murmured.

“Okay then!”

And he laughed again.

She climbed out to the snowy morning and she bowed her head so as to keep the flurries out of her eyes. The sunrise still remained on the other side of the White Mountains, which remained behind a thick blanket of low clouds. To think that she and Alex were over there just the day before and they lay on their backs together. She could still taste Alex on her lips; she could still feel him on her hands, much like how she could always taste Joey and Cliff on her lips as well. She need not give up on any of them so quickly as of yet.

In the meantime, she took a glimpse over at Eric and the little snowflakes which landed on the crown of his head. She tried to imagine him without any clothes but it was out of her mind's reach.

The trailer remained in a single piece right behind the car; Eric held the door for her and they stepped inside of the warm cozy cafe, which in fact had a billiards table in another room on the right side there. They took their seats there at the counter, right next to the cash register, and peeled off their coats; once she ordered them a couple of cups of coffee, he ducked into the next room for a round of billiards.

“So early, though, Eric,” she teased him as she followed him in there; a stained glass light hung over them and cast pale yellow light upon their heads as well as the faded dark green pool table before them.

“I wanna play, though,” he insisted, as if he was still a young boy. He picked out a pair of pool cues and handed one to her, to which she thanked him with a little smile and a warm sensation.

“Alex tells me you're a natural,” he told her as he twisted the little cube of chalk to the end of the cue.

“I dunno 'bout that,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders; he handed her the chalk to do the same, and he leaned over the edge of the table with the cue extended out before him. The end of the cue tapped onto the pearly white cue ball and knocked onto the ball closest to him, which in turn made the triangle of balls disperse across the table. Sam thought about Alex and how it all coalesced so beautifully between the two of them: Eric was cute, and she wondered if he was as soft and warm as Alex. She yearned for that softness, that sweetness, that kindness, the same thing that Cliff showed to her in an era that almost felt like an eternity ago. Eric had that full round face and that smooth inky black hair. If she could only touch him, especially right underneath his shirt. Right there under the shirt and then down inside of his jeans.

Right behind them was an older gentleman at a single table by himself, wrapped up in dark red flannel and with a small cap upon the crown of his head. A waitress strode over to him with a pad of paper in hand; they spoke about something as Sam stooped over the edge of the table with the cue extended out before her. She cocked her hip to the side a bit even though Eric stood on the other side of the table. She did, however, push her breasts together with her upper arms, even though her neckline never extended that far.

She raised her gaze once she tapped the cue ball and he stood there with his eyes hooded all for her.

“So all the trees over there are dead?” the waitress was asking right behind her.

“All the trees over by Horseshoe Lake are dead,” said the man. “Dried, cracked, and fallen to the ground. One morning, while we were camping, my wife and I woke up to trees literally wilting and dying over there.”

“Wow!” The waitress stopped in her tracks. “Wait a minute. You don't think the volcano is going to erupt any time soon, do you?”

“Doubt it,” said the man. “The volcano and earthquake people would be all over this whole region like flies on shit if that were the case, telling everyone from Bridgeport and Squaw Valley to Big Pine and Fresno to get out as fast as they can.”

“Horseshoe Lake?” Eric interrupted with a turn of his head. Sam lifted into an upright position for a better look at the man.

“On the other side of the mountain here,” the waitress explained with a nod of her head.

“Some poor bastard got caught up in his cabin a couple of nights ago and died,” the man told him.

“Oh my god,” Sam gasped as she held the cue close to her body.

“He worked with the park service, too,” the man continued, “my wife and I were camping out there when we heard about it. We just high tailed it out of there, like there was no way we were about to risk being there another couple of days.”

Eric looked over at Sam with his eyes wide with fear.

“You kids be safe around here,” he said in a low voice. “This whole part of the state is quiet—a bit too quiet if you ask me. A thousand years and we could have another lava dome form out of the ashes over by Horseshoe Lake.”

Another waitress set down the tray of coffee mugs on the other side of the counter, and Eric was eager to warm himself up with a fresh cup.

“You don’t think it’s going to erupt, do you?” Sam asked the man, concerned, to which he shook his head.

“Naw, but I would definitely be careful, though,” he assured her. “Especially if you and your boyfriend there go over that way for the weekend.”

“Oh no, he’s not my boyfriend,” she told him with a gesture back to Eric, who had begun on his cup of hot coffee on the other side of the counter.

“You sure? He’s been keeping his eye on you in particular since Gloria and I saw you come in.” The man flashed her a wink, but Sam knew it was all in good fun with her and Eric. Even with the residual sensations she was feeling within her, she swore to herself that it was all fun and games between them.

She collected the billiard balls into the triangle again and set her cue down on the side of the table before she joined Eric there at the counter. They asked for their breakfast and then they sat there with their cups of coffee in hand and the sunrise at their backs. All the times she had watched Alex eat up held a special spot in her heart, but as Eric picked up his fork and began on his duo of Belgian waffles, crispy and fresh and with a dollop of lush butter and a little drizzle of maple syrup on top, there was something rather gentle to it. Alex always took great care in how he ate something, whether it was a ginger snap or a big bowl of pasta, such that it was rather sensual to watch him. Eric was something else, though: he sliced away at his waffles at a slow pace, but it was more deliberate and he bowed his head, where Alex tilted back and closed his eyes every so often.

“Death is also coming to play up in Carson City in April, I think,” he said at one point. “You've heard of Death?”

“I have, yes!”

He bumped fists with her and then he slipped another bite of waffle into his mouth.

Sam thought about Alex and if he wanted anything to eat given the sun had risen up behind the clouds on the other side of the White Mountains far off in the distance: the sky outside glowed bright orange with the brand new day. Once Eric had downed a bit more of his coffee, she asked Gloria the waitress for another plate of waffles to take out to the trailer.

And while she indulged in her own breakfast, he finished the rest of his coffee and then he returned to the billiards table for another round.

Within time, the waitress returned with a white styrofoam box with a fresh thick batch of waffles. Sam paid for it all right there with the bit of money she had on her right then: she hoped to hear back from Scarlett in no time. More contact with the New York art scene meant she could find more of her way in the art scene in other places. Once she left a tip for Gloria, she picked up that box and took one last gulp of that cup of coffee, and she returned to the next room.

Eric stooped over the edge of the pool table with the cue extended out before him.

“Death goes hand in hand with desire, you know,” he pointed out; without moving his head, he glanced up at her. That round boyish face, quite a bit rounder than Alex's face, loomed right below her.

“Desire?” she echoed him as he tapped the cue ball and it smacked up right against the blue stripe. That one ball rolled into the corner furthest away from him.

“Did you know the word for 'orgasm' in French literally translates to 'little death'?” he told her as he stood into an upright position.

“I do now,” she replied as she held the little white box closest to her.

“You reach the top and you sorta die,” he continued in a slightly lower voice. He showed her his tongue as he came on closer to her: she could smell the soft musky cologne on the side of his neck. Something about the side of the neck, and something about the smooth skin there on the side of his neck in particular.

“Goes hand in hand with it,” she breathed to him; he eyed the blonde highlights upon her head and then he returned to her face, with his eyes even more hooded and heavy. The man had left which meant the room next to them was empty. There was no one else in the rest of the cafe; Eric lingered closer to her with those bedroom eyes.

“We can go in the car,” he suggested in a husky tone of voice.

“We're not going in the car,” she scoffed with a shake of her head.

“Why not?”

“Because it's freezing outside and I don't wanna wake up Alex.”

“Why, you think the romping and rolling in the car can wake that boy up?”

“Maybe,” she confessed in a soft voice, “or maybe it's from the fact that I'm hangin' with you and not him.”

Eric squinted his eyes at her.

“C'mere,” he whispered to her.

“Only if you c'mere for me,” she retorted back to him.

“Ah, yeah, big mama. I'm gonna make you come so hard. Reach the top of the mountain and make you die. Die so hard and quickly.”

“You sure it's gonna be quick?”

“Positive.”

“Quick and pointless?” she teased him.

“Not if you want it to be pointless,” he assured her.

“I don't want it pointless—but I want it.”

“You want it?”

“I want it.” She said that even if she had a lingering doubt in the back of her mind.

“You're kinda like one of the boys,” he confessed with his voice down to a near whisper.

“One of the boys?”

“Yeah, you like hanging out with all of us,” he explained, “I never really believed we'd have female fans who'd like to hang with us.”

“Let me just—let me just—” She set her free hand on his chest to feel his warmth.

She made a sex tape and slept with three boys—she was about to get down with Eric while in a public place. He leaned back a bit and she ran her hand down onto his stomach: she had to tell Alex about it at some point. He was the one who told her to do it.

“You better get down and get naked, big fella,” she insisted.

“Get naked here?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm. That's hot.”

The door of the building swung open and Alex staggered in right then. Sam flashed a glimpse over at him.

“'Mornin', baby doll,” she called over to him as he fetched up a yawn and rubbed his eyes.

“What's going on in here?” he asked them in a broken voice.

“We're just having a little chat,” Eric quipped; Sam strode over to him with the box cradled in both hands as if she presented to him a silver platter.

“What's this?” he asked her.

“Breakfast.”

“Oh, good! Thank you, Samantha.”

He took the box and she returned to Eric in the form of a glimpse over her shoulder back to him. He flashed her a wink as he readjusted the lapels of his sweater. So he was another boy she needed to give it to at some point in the future.

The three of them returned back outside, to the slivers of rich bright orange sunrise and the low hanging clouds overhead. She stared straight ahead to Mammoth Mountain there and she wondered about Horseshoe Lake on the other side. A few more flurries glided down around them from the cold crisp wintry winds and they bowed back into the car there at the curb: Alex ducked into the back seat and no sooner had he buckled in when he dug into the waffles.

“How are they, Alex?” Sam called back to him once she tucked herself into the driver's seat.

“They're excellent,” he said with his mouthful: she adjusted her mirror for a better look at it. Where Eric only had two, Alex had three, and she couldn't resist the devilish smile on her face.

“So how're we getting back to the Bay Area?” Eric asked her as he rubbed his hands together.

“Well, there's no way we're taking Tioga Road,” she told him, “not with all the snow on the ground, even around here. That bad boy's gonna be buttoned up good. No clue if Sonora Pass is open, either. Even though it's lower, it's still within range of Tioga, though.”

“Think we could go back the way we came and then loop around the Sierra Nevadas?”

“That'd take forever, though,” Alex pointed out with his mouth full of Belgian waffle.

“Yeah, that'd take all day and maybe into the night, too,” Sam added, “and you guys have to be back there, too. We'd have to go all the way back up to Carson City and eventually Reno. We'll have to Donner Pass because it's a much bigger road and they're a bit more lenient about people going through. If nothing, we'll be up at Carson City. One of the places I grew up in.”

“Sounds good by me,” Alex declared before he took another bite of waffle.

Sam doubled back to the highway right as dark clouds blanketed the orange light of the sunrise. She turned left and Mammoth Mountain loomed in her rear view mirror.

“We ought to have a menagerie,” Alex suggested before he took another bite.

“You mean a menage a trois,” Sam corrected him.

“Right.”

“A threesome on a full belly, right, Alex?” Eric joked.

“Hell yeah.” He sighed through his nose. Sam took a glimpse in the mirror over her: he leaned back in the seat and closed the box. Even in the car, she wanted to get down with him next. She never believed to be a groupie for one fleeting second, and she vowed to never reach that status, either, but she had her tongue around the two of them plus Greg, Louie, and Chuck as well. She hadn't touched Louie at any given point, but she still had him in the palm of her hand.

Even with the four hour drive, she still wanted to stop over and let these two boys relax their tummies and their sleepy heads. Eric did refer to her as “big mama” back there after all.

They stopped over in Lee Vining for fuel, and for Alex to walk about the place with his little white guitar pressed against his little body. Right before they rolled into town, Eric had told her the song titles on the new album, and she knew the whole process was going to be quick from that point onward. She muttered the titles to herself because she knew that, rushed or not, this album was going to be hers for the taking.

While the car was being fuelled up, she stopped Alex right there on the sidewalk.

“That last song,” she muttered over the rush of the breeze down the mountain side and the distant waves of Mono Lake, “what's it called?”

“'Seven Days of May,'” Alex replied in a low voice. “I wrote that when the whole ordeal in Tiananmen Square first started and then came to a head right before the tour started.”

“So fierce,” Sam remarked.

“Well, you saw it,” he told her as he lowered the guitar's neck a bit, “—and you saw me, too. It was horrifying. I couldn't believe what I was seeing—I bet you felt the same, too.”

“I did,” she said; when she noticed the fallen look on his face, she extended a hand onto his shoulder. “Hey—it's okay.”

Alex raised his gaze to her, still with his guitar cradled upon his lap.

“It's okay,” she repeated in a soft voice. “I said it then and I'll say it now—you do everything that you can, Alex.”

“I really do,” he said in a near whisper, “I really truly do, Samantha.”

“And know that I'm never far away from you, either,” she added, to which he showed her a small shy smile.

“You really aren't. You're always there when I want you the most, too. It's like our paths were meant to converge together.”

Sam inched closer to him.

“D'you know Eric called me 'one of the boys'?” she told him.

“Did you take that as a compliment?” he asked her.

“I did! He explained it and said he didn't believe any of Testament's girl fans would want to hang with them.”

“Well—if I'm being honest, I didn't think we would, either.”

“Really? What makes you think that?”

“Because—we're nerds, Samantha. And I am, especially. Girls don't talk to nerds.”

“But I'm talking to you right now,” she pointed out.

“And that always kinda blew my mind, too,” he continued with a straight face, “like I couldn't imagine a bunch of girls liking all of us like the way you do. Or with Marla, Aurora, Belinda, and Zelda, too.”

“The five of us, we just like hanging out,” she told him. “The fact there's a bit of music thrown in just makes it better. It makes it better for me, anyway.”

“Metal was always a strictly masculine thing,” he confessed to her. “I will say this, though—I like how the Cherry Suicides give it some extra life.”

Another gust of wind sent a shiver down her spine and she peered over her shoulder. They were alone on the sidewalk, not too far from the car itself as well as the front door of the gas station.

“I still like how you were in Aurora and Emile's wedding,” she told him.

“I caught hell for that, too,” he recalled. “Like I'm one of the girls. Like there's a problem with that.”

“I'm one of the guys and you're one of the girls,” she said.

“Right!”

He adjusted the leather strap on the guitar a bit and he unzipped his coat all the way down to his waist.

“A bit too warm?” she asked him.

“Oh, yeah. Even just standing out here.”

The way his hair spread over his shoulders and down onto his chest. She noticed the collar of his shirt undone a bit. All clothed up and yet he was feeling so full all the while. She wanted to come closer to him right then and there, even while out on the street. Dyeing her hair blonde must have done something to her as she lingered in closer to him.

“You're looking extra sexy right about now,” she confessed to him.

“Extra sexy,” he repeated that.

“Yeah. You're looking really sexy right now, Alex.”

“I'll never forget the first time you said that to me,” he recalled with a little raise of his eyebrows.

“Because you are sexy. You're very sexy, baby.”

Sam lingered in closer to him so she could smell the waffles and the coffee on him. Something so homey about it.

“You really are one of the boys,” he whispered to her.

“And you're one of the girls,” she whispered back to him. She set her hand on his knee and she leaned in closer to him. She took a glimpse down at her own chest, at the triangle of skin exposed for him.

“And I'd like to caress those girls, too,” he said with a raise of his eyebrows.

“Yeah, you like to be one of the girls so you can touch some girls, don't ya, big boy?” she teased him.

“God, that's hot,” he breathed, and then he closed his eyes. She lingered to his face as if she was about to kiss him but she never did.

“Never mind art vixen,” he teased her. “You are the art whore, emphasis on 'whore'.”

“Aurora and I were the art whores—think it's official now, baby.”

“The art whore...” he echoed it. “The hot as hell bad girl.”

“Hey, you two porn stars,” Eric called out to them from the driver's side of the car, and they turned for a look over at him and the mischievous smile on his face. Alex and Sam made their way back onto the cold blacktop and back to him as he huddled further down inside his jacket.

“Think we dressed a little too lightly for this trip, Eric,” Alex confessed as he zipped his jacket back up his body.

“I think we did, Alex,” Eric added as Sam swayed her hips at them on the way over to the passenger side and the fuel pump. She remembered what Alex had teasing her and she wondered if he at all meant it. There was a little devil inside of that strait laced boy, and she knew she would dance with him at some point in the future. There was one inside of Eric, too, but she had to tame the one inside of Alex first. She had a feeling that if she brought him to his knees first, she could do anything as she took the pump out out of the mouth of the tank and then she doubled back inside to wash her hands.

When she returned, Alex had put his guitar back into the case and then he lay it down on the floor behind the driver's seat. He paused once she returned to the car.

“This is Cliff's old hat, isn't it?” he asked her; she peered into the back seat at Alex taking the black cowboy hat from under the seat. She had forgotten she had brought it with her. All the memories returned to her once again. They had crossed over into a brand new decade without him.

There was that interview Greg had shared with the two of them, the one she needed to bear witness to for herself. The very thought of it brought a firm full feeling to the inside of her throat.

“Yeah, it is. I wore it for what feels like forever it seems.”

Alex gazed into her eyes and he raised his eyebrows once again, which in turn softened his face. He set it back into its hiding place there in the back seat and he climbed inside. Sam took her place there behind the steering wheel. Eric buckled in and handed her the key.

“When we get back to the Bay Area, I wanna visit him again,” she told them.

“Where James and Lars spread her ashes?” Eric asked her, to which she nodded.

“We gotta get there first,” Alex told her. She gazed out to the cold endemic lake as it loomed out before them.

Even after five years, even with the sexy feeling inside of her, the very thought of Cliff made her feel the same way that lake looked.

#fanfic #fanfiction #testament fanfic #chapter 2 #fever in fever out #fever in fever out fanfic #veritas #book five #alex skolnick #eric peterson #alex x sam #slow burn #slice of life #also on ao3 #also on wattpad #writing #text

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thelastchair · 4 years ago

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Powder Magazine

(Written by Sam Cox - December 28, 2020)

Growing up in Montana, my winter free time was consumed by skiing. Big Sky was the destination when I was barely old enough to walk. Eventually we made the move to Bozeman and Bridger Bowl became my second home. During the early years, my family made the trek to a handful of Warren Miller movies when they were on tour in the fall and Snow Country was the magazine subscription that landed on the coffee table. I was vaguely aware of Jackson Hole, Snowbird and Squaw Valley and my father would occasionally regale me with tales of skiing (read Après) in Germany when he was in the Army. At some level, I already understood that there was something special about Bridger, but realistically, my sphere of outside influence was quite small. Christmas of 1989 turned my entire world upside down. My aunt and uncle are longtime Salt Lake City residents and Brighton skiers. Typically they would send a package each year with the customary cookies, toffee and a card. However, this year they sent two VHS tapes and a magazine - Ski Time, Blizzard of Aahhh’s and a copy of Powder. Things would never be the same for me. Scot Schmidt became my hero, Greg Stump was taking skiing into uncharted territory and above it all, Powder created an eloquent voice for our sport and was the fabric that held things together. Even at my young age, everything that I’d intuitively sensed before was distilled into a potent desire to devote myself to the simple pursuit of being a skier.

Johan Jonsson, Engelberg, Switzerland - Photo: Mattias Fredriksson/POWDER

Powder was founded in Sun Valley by the Moe brothers in 1972 as an annual portfolio of The Other Ski Experience. After several years of running the magazine, Jake and David Moe sold Powder to the owner of Surfer Magazine. A repurposed aircraft hangar in San Juan Capistrano became the new home of skiing’s most prestigious publication. Over time, there was an ebb and flow to the size of staff and cast of characters, each person leaving their unique mark. For decades Powder weathered corporate acquisitions, office relocations and the constant metamorphosis of the ski industry - never losing its voice, Powder remained the benchmark. It was a source of creativity, inspiration and a defacto annal of history. For many it was also a shining beacon, a glimpse into a world filled with deep turns and iconic destinations - even if this world could only be inhabited inside the constructs of your imagination.

My story and the impact Powder had on the direction I would take is hardly unique. The magazine left an indelible impression on countless skiers. When the news broke this fall that operations were being suspended indefinitely, a heartbroken community took to social media to pay homage to the magazine and how it changed their lives and in some cases, careers. This is my version of a tribute and it’s definitely not perfect. In order to gain some perspective, I reached out to former staff members - a collective I admire and respect. It’s an attempt to articulate the essence of Powder, capture its influence on the skiing landscape and give credit to the people who made it come to life.

Bernie Rosow, Mammoth Mountain, CA - Photo: Christian Pondella/POWDER

HANS LUDWIG - The Jaded Local

“Skiing has always been really tribal and one of the last vestiges of having an oral history. Powder was a unique concept, because they weren’t really concerned with the family market. They were just concerned about being really into skiing. Growing up in Colorado and skiing moguls, my coaches Robert and Roger were featured in the early Greg Stump films. Being in their orbit, I knew a little bit about skiing culture and what was going on out there, but didn’t have the whole picture. The Stump films resonated with me, but Ski/Skiing Magazines didn’t really do it for me. Powder was the door that opened things culturally, it was the only entry point before Blizzard of Aahhh’s.”

“Something that nobody gives Powder credit for, is sponsoring the Greg Stump, TGR and MSP movies and giving them full support right from their inception. It legitimized those companies and helped them become one of the catalysts for change and evolution in skiing. Ultimately this change would have happened, but at a much slower pace without the support of Powder. Getting support from Powder meant they’d weeded out the posers and kooks and what they were backing wasn’t something or someone that was “aspiring” they were a cut above.”

“Powder brought a lot of things into the mainstream, raised awareness and helped to legitimize them: Jean-Marc Boivin, Patrick Vallencant, Pierre Tardivel, telemarking, monoskiing, snowboarding, the JHAF, Chamonix, La Grave, Mikaela Shiffrin, fat skis pre McConkey, skiing in South America….the list goes on.”

“I had some rowdy trips with Powder. Writing “Lost In America,” I went Utah-Montana-Fernie-Banff-Revelstoke via pickup truck, only backcountry skiing and camping in the mud. It was a month plus. I did another month plus in Nevada, which was after back to back Jackson and Silverton. Total time was two plus months. That was fucked up, I was super loose after that whole thing. So many sketchy days with total strangers”

“People forget that Powder was around long before the advent of the fucking pro skier. Starting in 1996, the magazine was in the impact zone of the ski industrial complex. There is limited space for content each season. It was a challenge to balance the pressure coming from the athletes and brands to cover something that was going to make them money vs. staying true to the Moe brothers original intent and profiling an eccentric skier, a unique location or even fucking ski racing.”

Full Circle - Photo: MJ Carroll

KEITH CARLSEN - Editor

“When I was young, Ski/Skiing didn’t do anything for my spirit, but Powder lit me up. It ignited a passion in diehard skiers and gave them a voice and community. It was focused on the counter culture - the type of people who rearrange their lives to ski. This was in direct opposition to other magazines that were targeting rich people, trying to explain technique, sell condos or highlight the amenities at a ski area.”

“Skiing has always been my outlet and mechanism to get away from things in life. My two talents are writing and photography, so I enrolled at Western State with the direct goal of landing an internship at Powder. Even at 19, I had complete focus on the direction I wanted to take. If it didn’t work out, my backup plan was to be a ski bum. 48 hours after graduating, I was headed to southern California to live in my van and start my position at Powder. When the decision was made to close the magazine, it was really personal for me. Powder had provided me direction in life for the last 30 years and I needed some time to process it. In a way, it was almost like going to a funeral for a good friend - even though it’s gone, the magazine lives on in all of us and can never be taken away.”

“It was, and will always remain, one of my life’s greatest honors to serve as the editor-in-chief for Powder Magazine. It was literally a dream that came true. I’m so grateful for everyone who came before me and everyone who served after me. That opportunity opened literally hundreds of doors for me and continues to do so today. I owe the magazine a massive debt of gratitude. Every single editor was a warrior and fought for the title with their lives. They were doing double duty - not only from competition with other publications, but the internal struggle of budget cuts, staff reductions and trying to do more with less. Powder never belonged in the hands of a corporation. The magazine spoke to an impassioned community and never made sense to an accountant or on a ledger.”

Trevor Petersen, Mt. Serratus, BC - Photo: Scott Markewitz/POWDER

SIERRA SHAFER - Editor In Chief

“Powder celebrated everything that is good and pure in skiing. It highlighted the old school, the new and the irreverent. The magazine also called bullshit when they saw it. It was a checkpoint, a cultural barometer and an honest reflection on where skiing has been and where it’s going.”

“My involvement with Powder came completely out of left field. I was never an intern or established in the ski industry. My background was strictly in journalism, I was a skier living in Southern California and editing a newspaper. I knew that I wanted to get the fuck out of LA and Powder was that opportunity. It was a huge shift going from my job and life being completely separate to work becoming my life. Literally overnight, Powder became everything - friends, connections and part of my identity. It derailed my trajectory in the best possible way.”

Brad Holmes, Donner Pass, CA - Photo: Dave Norehad/POWDER

MATT HANSEN - Executive Editor

“Keith Carlsen was a man of ideas, he had tremendous vision and influence. He came up with the ideas for Powder Week and the Powder Awards in 2001. In some respects those two events saved the magazine.”

“Powder was the soul of skiing and kept the vibe, it changed people’s lives and inspired them to move to a ski town. As a writer I always wanted to think it was the stories that did that, but in truth it was the photography. Images of skiing truly became an art form, 100% thanks to Powder Magazine and Dave Reddick. Dave cultivated and mentored photographers, he was always searching for the unpredictable image from around the world and pressed the photographers to look at things from a different angle.”

“It sounds cliche, but writing a feature about Chamonix was the highlight for me. Sitting on the plane, things were absolutely unreal. I linked up with Nate Wallace and the whole experience from start to finish was out of my comfort zone. Ducking ropes to ski overhead pow on the Pas De Chèvre, walking out of the ice tunnel on a deserted Aiguille du Midi right as the clouds parted, late nights in town that were too fuzzy to recall. The energy of the place taught me a lot. I didn’t have a smartphone and there was no Instagram - I had time to write, observe, take notes and be present with who I was and with the experience. As a writer it didn’t get any better.”

“The true gift of working for Powder, was the once in a lifetime adventures that I wish I could have shared with my family, I was so lucky to have had those opportunities. It almost brought tears to me eyes.”

Peter Romaine, Jackson Hole, WY - Photo: Wade McKoy/POWDER

DAVE REDDICK - Director of Photography

“Just ski down there and take a photo of something, for cryin’ out loud!” “I’ve found that channeling McConkey has been keeping it in perspective. Powder’s been shuttered. That sucks. What doesn’t suck is the good times and the people that have shared the ride thus far and I’m just thankful to be one of them. There’s been some really kind sentiments from friends and colleagues, but this must be said - Every editor (especially the editors), every art director (I’ve driven them nuts), every publisher and sales associate, every photographer, writer, and intern, and all the others behind the scenes who’ve ever contributed their talents get equal share of acknowledgment for carrying the torch that is Powder Mag. There’s hundreds of us! No decision has ever been made in a vacuum. Always a collective. At our best, we’ve been a reflection of skiers everywhere and of one of the greatest experiences in the world. It’s that community, and that feeling, that is Powder. I’m not sure what’s next and I’m not afraid of change but” “There’s something really cool about being scared. I don’t know what!”

Scot Schmidt, Alaska - Photo: Chris Noble/POWDER

DEREK TAYLOR - Editor

“Powder was the first magazine dedicated to the experience and not trying to teach people how to ski. It was enthusiast media focused on the soul and culture. It’s also important to highlight the impact Powder had outside of skiing - today you have the Surfer’s Journal effect where every sport wants that type of publication. However, prior to their inception, everybody wanted a version of Powder.”

“Neil Stebbins and Steve Casimiro deserve a lot of credit for the magazine retaining its voice and staying true to the core group of skiers it represented.”

“Keith Carlsen is responsible for the idea behind Super Park. This was a time when skiing had just gone through a stale phase. There was a newfound energy in park skiing and younger generations, this event helped to rebrand Powder and solidify its goal of being all inclusive. Racing, powder, park, touring - it’s all just skiing.”

Joe Sagona, Mt. Baldy, CA - Photo: Dave Reddick/POWDER

JOHNNY STIFTER - Editor In Chief

“What did Powder mean to me... Well, everything. As a reader and staffer, it inspired me and made me laugh. I learned about local cultures that felt far away and learned about far away cultures that didn’t feel foreign, if that makes sense.”

“But I cherished those late nights the most, making magazines with the small staff. Despite the deadline stress, I always felt so grateful to be working for this sacred institution and writing and editing for true skiers. We all just had so much damn fun. And it didn’t hurt meeting such passionate locals at hallowed places, like Aspen and Austria, that I once dreamed of visiting and skiing. The Powder culture is so inclusive and so fun, I never felt more alive.”

Doug Coombs, All Hail The King - Photo: Ace Kvale/POWDER

HEATHER HANSMAN - Online Editor

“Powder is a lifestyle and an interconnected circle of people. It’s about getting a job offer at Alta, opening your home to random strangers, locking your keys in your car and getting rescued by a friend you made on a trip years ago. Through the selfish activity of skiing, you can create a community of people you cherish and can depend on through highs and lows.”

Ashley Otte, Mike Wiegele Heli, BC - Photo: Dave Reddick/POWDER

The contributions of so many talented individuals made the magazine possible. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who shared their experience at Powder with me. Also, I want to thank Porter Fox and David Page for crafting inspiring feature stories that I enjoyed immensely over the years.

After the reality set in that the final issue had arrived, a void was created for generations of skiers. I’ve been focused on being thankful for what we had, rather than sad it’s gone. It’s a challenging time for print media and I wholeheartedly advocate supporting the remaining titles in anyway you can. In a culture driven by a voracious appetite for mass media consumption and instant gratification - I cherish the ritual of waiting for a magazine to arrive, appreciating the effort that went into creating the content and being able to have that physical substance in my hand. Thanks for everything Powder, you are missed, but your spirit lives on.

Captain Powder - Photo: Gary Bigham/POWDER

#skiing #powder #last chair #powder magazine #the other ski experience #the skiers magazine

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josiebelladonna · 5 years ago

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california gothic

inspired by this post

Looming about the morning skies is thick dense fog, particularly heavy around the San Francisco Bay Area, but prevalent along the coastline from San Diego all the way up to Crescent City. It straddles the land and leaves a frigid damp feeling in its wake even upon clearing out with the afternoon sun.

further inland is a phenomenon known as “tule fog”, brought on by the cold night air caressing over the sun-baked earth. This fog is thick, often so thick that it warrants a warning to use caution driving anywhere in Bakersfield and Fresno.

At night after the fog has collected and compounded into thick piles in the valleys within the Sierra Nevadas and the Santa Lucias, it’s quiet. So quiet that the possibility of madness runs high.

the small towns scattered about the rural parts of the state roll up their sidewalks at sundown, no exceptions, no matter what the time of year.

the small towns all either have these weirdly matter-of-fact names like “Baker”, “Monolith”, and “Obsidian”, indigenous names like “Tehachapi”, or they’re named after people like “Taft” and “Delano”. It’s here that you realize there’s three tiers of society here.

the Central Valley is utterly littered with rusty old oil rigs and people who aren’t exactly “there” so to speak. Their grandparents and great-grandparents originally hailed from Tornado Alley in the wake of the Dust Bowl. This is rather common near the Bakersfield area, which consists of said oil rigs and farmland.

Figure there must be a hidden plantation at some point near the Arvin area. The farm workers are trying to escape and expose the corruption of the owner while offering you strawberries and avocados for prices you can’t beat with a stick because the other alternative is to let them starve at the hand of the owner.

The times it snows leave the mountainous areas in thick blankets of pure white. You arrive in a place such as Squaw Valley or Big Bear or Mammoth with your parka, skis, knee high boots, and goggles because the other alternative is literally freezing under Devil’s Postpile. You stay in the lodge during your break where you are nestled down in the comfiest chair next to a roaring fire and with a cup of hot cocoa in hand. You watch the snow falling in silence outside the large bay window.

every other street in Los Angeles is one way. If you miss your turn, there’s no way back.

the upper class in LA is well-to-do, parading about with their sexy carriages and living within their elaborate houses surrounded by lush yards and above ground swimming pools. One can only wonder about the lives of the beautiful people as their maid staff appears more downtrodden than the farm workers.

Graffiti tags and murals are everywhere, vast stretches of elaborate, gratuitous paintings sprayed and scribed onto the pale bricks making up the skyscrapers near the heart of downtown. Works range from thick word art of all colors of the rainbow made brighter by the neon street lights, to haunting portraits that follow you onto Sepulveda Boulevard or into the nearby 7-11.

Every gutter is either incredibly filthy or flooded. Every street is either poorly maintained or just been paved. Freeways are a delicate intricate web embedded amongst the city of angels like veins. A wrong turn and you’re on your way to Riverside.

San Francisco is pristine with its clean lines and bleached underpants. Art is the city’s lifeblood even with its insistence on geometry. It flows like a river in the spirit of Haight-Ashbury like a psychedelic lick under the cluster of glass and clean steel. You feel it upon the walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge and the cold kiss of the Bay fog.

San Diego relaxes like a napping cat, under the Pacific sun while straddling the brim of the low desert and the Mexican border. You walk about any street under a jacaranda tree and the first passerby will give you directions to La Hoya on a whim. The kindness perturbs you to where you wonder if these people have been programmed to bestow kindness unto humans.

Little Italy is voluptuous and alluring: quaint cafes are the norm, gentle colors welcome you and call you bellissima; meanwhile, the aroma of fresh tomatoes seduces you to that big bowl of gorgeous pasta and leaves you feeling full and lush, much like the slender, very sexy, very mysterious Italian Stallion seated outside with his shirt collar opened, his hand on the cup of latte, and his eye on both you and the young lady with a round full figure.

Wine country dials the sensuality back but the stacks of barrels near the vineyards signify business owners with a lot to say but no one to say to because everyone they have said it to has already heard it.

Northern California carries a veil reminiscent of upstate New York around it. Sacramento remains low-key even in the wake of a devastating wildfire and a dirty, dingy downtown area. The forests and the highway are near-untouched, vast and grassy under the unsettlingly quiet Mount Shasta and the cold, menacing Mount Lassen. The towns are nondescript but oft closed to visitors. Puritans so abound, they either dismiss you or want to brainwash you.

The eastern Sierra is even more deceitful, the high mountains and passes changing weather within thirty minutes after the fact. You might freeze outside of Bridgeport or on Tioga Pass en route to Yosemite. That is if you don’t fall in and dissolve at the helm of the alkaline Mono Lake.

The Mojave is vast and desolate, beginning in a bowl shape at the base of Long Valley Caldera and stretching into a long wind tunnel along the jagged foreboding eastern Sierra, and falling into cold windswept darkness after the hour hand hits the two. Beyond that it disappears into the distance under the bath of the sun, an enormous sheet of scorched earth scattered with volcanic rock, Joshua trees, and sagebrush. Darkness rides into the sinking grave of Death Valley at high noon.

Volcanic activity is understated but present, looming in the background like a demon, the sole barrier between you and it being boulders as thick as skyscrapers. That hairline fracture? Probably nothing. Hopefully.

The ocean is cold and gray before every beach. Some beaches have sand, others are steep cliffs, others with smoothed sea glass, fragments of bottles and cans left to waste, tumbled and transformed into colorful art by the alchemical caress of the sea.

Seaweed, shells, and driftwood are an unsung currency. It’s not uncommon to find yourself draped in a batch of kelp following a storm surge near Point Conception. You might as well be rich at that point.

Palm trees rise up against the cold fog, oftentimes juxtaposed to a jacaranda or a ponderosa pine. Or both. Either way you find yourself lost.

One gets a vibe that the Spanish missions of the 19th century instilled a fear of God and the apocalypse into everyone. Don’t be surprised if you’re walking near the Hollywood sign and you feel the ground rumble beneath your feet. The San Andreas fault is never far away.

#regional gothic #california #california gothic #i haven’t seen something like this yet so here #text

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squawmountainranchtx · 4 years ago

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hunting

Website: https://www.squawmountainranch.com/

Address: 2576 Squaw Mountain Rd, Jacksboro, TX 76458

Phone: +1 (830) 275-3277

Today, SMR is offering some of the best Texas Trophy Whitetail Hunting and Exotic Hunting opportunities in all of Texas, along with Bird, Turkey, Hog, Varmint, and More Hunts including: Trophy Elk, Axis Deer, Scimitar Oryx, Blackbuck Antelope, Fallow Deer, Addax, Aoudad, Buffalo, White Buffalo, Corsican Rams, Black Hawaiian, Bongo, Blesbok, Catalina Goats, Eland, Four-Horned Sheep, Gazelle, Gemsbok, Himalayan Tahr, Impala, Hybrid Ibex, Kudu, Markhor, Mouflon Ram, Nyala, Nubian Ibex, Red Stag, Red Lechwe, Sable, Spanish Goats, Springbok, Texas Dall Ram, Transcaspian Urial, Wildebeest, Zebra and other African game to the discriminating hunter. Located in Jack County, less than 2 hours from the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Squaw Mountain Ranch offers premier Big Texas Whitetail Hunting Operation providing an experience of a lifetime to all hunters.

#hunting

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xtruss · 2 years ago

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Native Americans: Yellowstone Renames Mountain Linked to Massacre of Native Americans

Peak renamed First Peoples Mountain was known as Mount Doane after Gustavus Doane who led attack that killed 173 people in 1870

— Victoria Bekiempis | Tuesday 14 June 2022

Yellowstone national park. Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP

Yellowstone national park has renamed the peak that was once known as Mount Doane to First Peoples Mountain, in a decision to strip from the famed wildlands an “offensive name” evoking the murders of nearly 200 Native Americans, officials said.

In a 9 June announcement, National Park Service authorities also said they might weigh similar renamings in the future.

The 10,551-ft mountain had been named after Gustavus Doane, a US army captain. Doane was a “key member” of an 1870 expedition before Yellowstone became the country’s first national park, authorities said.

But earlier the same year of the expedition, Doane helmed an attack on a band of Piegan Blackfeet in retaliation for the purported murder of a white furrier. This assault, now known as the Marias Massacre, resulted in the killing of at least 173 Native Americans, authorities said.

The victims included numerous women, elders and children who contracted smallpox. “Doane wrote fondly about this attack and bragged about it for the rest of his life,” the National Park Service said.

The new First Peoples name was “based on recommendations from the Rocky Mountain Tribal Council, subsequent votes within the Wyoming Board of Geographic names, and [support] of the National Park Service,” officials added. These entities ultimately forwarded this name to the US Board on Geographic Names this month.

That board, which is responsible for maintaining uniformity in geographic name usage across the federal government, voted 15-0 to affirm the renaming, officials said. Yellowstone recently reached out to the 27 tribes associated with the park and “received no opposition to the change nor concerns”.

“Yellowstone may consider changes to other derogatory or inappropriate names in the future,” officials also said in their announcement.

This renaming comes as the US Department of the Interior ramps up efforts to rename hundreds of geographic formations deemed to be offensively titled. The interior secretary, Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a cabinet secretary position, issued an order in November 2021 that officially declared “squaw” to be a “derogatory” word.

Haaland’s order required that the Board of Geographic Names come up with a process to remove that word from federal use. The department, in February of this year, released a list of potential replacement names for more than 660 geographic sites which included the word.

She also issued an order that created a federal advisory committee “to broadly solicit, review, and recommend changes to other derogatory geographic and federal land unit names”.

“Words matter, particularly in our work to make our nation’s public lands and waters accessible and welcoming to people of all backgrounds,” Haaland said. “Consideration of these replacements is a big step forward in our efforts to remove derogatory terms whose expiration dates are long overdue.”

The renaming of geographic formations comes amid a push to remove Confederate symbols across the US in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. More than 200 Confederate monuments and memorials have been renamed, removed, or relocated, according to the New York Times.

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freakyfoottours · 2 years ago

Link

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meenophoto · 3 years ago

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We get out of dodge one step ahead of the next big storm coming into the mountains. (at Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe) https://www.instagram.com/p/CcajSEWrXuE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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robertscastellini · 3 years ago

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Some of the Largest Ski Resorts

Ski Resorts are towns and villages in winter sports areas that provide housing, equipment rental, ski schools, and ski lifts for skiing and snowboarding. There are many ski resorts in the United States. As of 2021, there were 470 skiing locations in the United States in operation. New York State has the highest number of ski resorts in the United States, with 49 ski resorts. Michigan comes in the second position, with 39 ski resorts. Wisconsin and Colorado come in the third position with 30 ski resorts each. Here are the largest ski resorts in the United States. Park City, Utah, is one of the ski areas in the United States. Park City, Utah, is the classic ski town due to its close access to a major airport, its array of pubs and restaurants, and its ability to appeal to the wealthy and the average person. Vail bought Park City Mountain Resort in 2015 and united it with Canyons Resort, resulting in the largest ski area in America (about 7,300 acres). The second-largest ski resort in the United States is the Big Sky resort in Montana. Big Sky, Montana's ski resort, was formerly the largest in the United States, but Park City, Utah's expanding ski resort, has surpassed it. Big Sky did something similar to Park City a few years back when it absorbed its defunct neighbor Moonlight Basin, resulting in a 5,800-acre ski resort with the moniker "America's Biggest Skiing." Big Sky is connected to a 2,200-acre ski resort by lifts and ski slopes. It now has 8,000 acres, making it the largest in the United States and the second-largest in North America. The catch is that the Yellowstone Club owns the added acres. To become a member of the Yellowstone Club, one will have to invest millions of dollars in the property. The next on the list is the Vail resort in Colorado. Vail, Colorado, was formerly the third-largest ski resort in North America and the second-largest ski resort in the United States but fell to fourth following Park City's $50 million expansion. It has a total area of 5,289 acres. The fourth-largest ski resort in the United States is the Heavenly Mountain Resort in California. With 4,800 acres, Heavenly Mountain Resort, another Vail Resorts ski resort that straddles the California-Nevada border. The Mt Bachelor in Oregon comes in fifth place. Mt Bachelor in Oregon recently expanded its terrain by 500 acres. It has grown to 3,683 acres, putting it in the fifth position in the United States and eighth in North America in terms of size. Mt Bachelor has twelve ski lifts in operation. Tubing, snowshoeing, and dog-sledding trips are also available at the resort. The Squaw Valley Ski Resort in California is the sixth largest ski resort in the United States and the ninth position in North America. It has a landmass of 3600 acres. The seventh-largest ski resort in the United States is Mammoth Mountain in California. It is also the tenth-largest ski resort in North America. The Mammoth Mountain has a landmass of 3500 acres, only 100 acres smaller than the Squaw Valley resort.

#Ski Resorts

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sprntrco · 3 years ago

Photo

Back in the good ol USA and went straight to the mountains. Look at that #big #white #whale!!! #airstream #sprintervan looked pretty lux. The awning was really slick. Almost looked invisible. Lots of Sprinter vans everywhere. #Mercedes #Benz #sprintervan #sprntr #vanlifesprinter #sprntrco #van #vangram #vanstagram #vanspotting #vanlife #adventuremobile #4x4 #4x4van #sprintervan4x4 #907sprinter (at Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe) https://www.instagram.com/sprntr.co/p/CY1vw1sO55h/?utm_medium=tumblr

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togachipblog · 3 years ago

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Tahoe Chips

Toga Chip Gal and I went on a vacation, felt more like a second honeymoon, to Lake Tahoe, which is truly God's country. While there, in the breezeway of a local super market chain, Raley's, we discovered a display for Tahoe Chips. I contacted the owner of the company, Tom Keefer, to learn about his company.

Tom, along with his brother Mike and their childhood friend Dan Brinker have created many brands, including Wild California, but Tahoe Chips was Tom's creation. Since he was five years old, Tom has lived, worked and played in Lake Tahoe. In 2015, Tom developed Tahoe Chips to celebrate his favorite place with the hope that the company will be successful enough that he will be able give back by donating a portion of the proceeds to a local charity. This explains the company's name, Friends of Tahoe.

The product has been on the market since 2017. The chips come in the following four flavors: Bar-B-Que, Jalapeno, Salt & Vinegar and Sea Salt,

The company's motto is "Crisp as the Lake." Tom explained that when you jump into Lake Tahoe, its cold and that feeling inspired the tagline. The bags display some of the major the activities in the Lake Tahoe area: biking, hiking, sailing, and skiing.

Currently the chips are available at select Raley's and Safeway grocery stores as well as about 60 independent stores in the San Francisco Bay area of California. The company's billing name is Blue Water Foods, as Lake Tahoe is one of the bluest lakes in the world. The AAA Nevada Tour Book provides the following description of Lake Tahoe.

Lake Tahoe was named "big water" by the Washoe Indians. According to Washoe legend, it was created during the pursuit of an innodent Native American man by an Evil Spirit. In an attempt to ward off the Evil Spirit, the Great Spirit bestowed upon the pursued man a branch of leaves, promising that each leaf dropped would magically produce a body of water that would impede the Evil Spirit's chase. The man, however, dropped the entire branch in fright, creating the giant lake.

It is estimated that Lake Tahoe holds enough water to cover the entire state of California to a depth of 14 inches, its average depth is 989 feet; the deepest point is 1,645 feet, making Tahoe the third deepest lake in North America. The water is remarkably clear, deep blue and also 97 percent pure - nearly the same level as distilled water. The first 12 feet below the surface can warm to 68 F in summer, while depths below 700 feet remain at a constant temperature of 39 F.

Twelve miles wide and 22 miles long, this "lake in the sky" straddles the California/Nevada line at an elevation of 6,229 feet. It lies in a valley between the Sierra Nevada range and an eastern offshoot, the Carson Range. The mountains, which are snow-capped except in late summer, rise more than 4,000 feet above Tahoe's resort-lined shore. Most of the surrounding region is covered by the Eldorado, Humboldt-Toiyabe and Tahoe national forests.

Immigrants and miners were lured to the rugged Sierras by tales of fortunes made during the California gold rush. The discovery of the Comstock Lode increased traffic and depleted the Tahoe Basin's natural resources to a dangerously low level. Between 1860 and 1890 lumber was needed for fuel and to support the web of mines constructed beneath Virginia City, Nev. The subsequent decline of the Comstock Lode spared many thousands of trees.

By the eraly 20th century lake Tahoe was a retreat for the rich, with luxurt lakeside hotels springing up along its shores. After roads were paved during the 1920s and '30s, the lakeshore was no longer an enclave only for the wealthy.

The landscape is often snow-covered in winter, and skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts head to well-known areas like Diamond Peak, Heavenly and Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows (home of the 1960 Winter Olympics). Despite cold winters, however, the lake never freezes over due to the constant flow of water from the bottom to the surface. Popular summer recreational activities include mountain biking, hiking, fishing, golfing, kayaking, windsurfing, canoeing, horseback riding, snorkeling, water skiing, boating and swimming.

Enjoy some of the photos from our vacation. Among the most interesting were the site of the Ponderosa Ranch from television's Bonanza, the former CalNev Lodge once partially owned by Frank Sinatra, and Emerald Bay and its Vikings Holm. Read all about the latter

http://vikingsholm.com/index.html.

What corporate titan has purchased three homes to be knocked down to build a mega mansion in Incline Village and also purchased the old Ponderosa Ranch to use as a staging area and also purchased the CalNeva Lodge and Casino? Email me your answer at [email protected]. Enjoy Lorne Greene, Bonanza's Ben Cartwright, singing the theme song.

youtube

Hear the Man in Black, Johnny Cash's, version.

youtube

The Toga Chip Guy

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thehikingviking · 4 years ago

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Waucoba Mountain & Wunupu Peak from Whippoorwill Flat

There were many reasons for me to visit Waucoba Mountain, but whenever I thought about actually climbing it, the conditions were either too warm or too snowy. We were having a very dry autumn, so I planned a mid-November trip with Brett Marciasini, knowing this peak was high on his to-do list. We each booked a motel room in Big Pine where we met the night before. The next morning we drove his car to the trailhead, while I left my Jeep with Asaka back in town so she and Leif could go sight seeing. We used Google Maps to navigate us to the trailhead, but I do not recommend this. We started up Waucoba Road towards Death Valley, but the app had us turn off the pavement too soon. The key is to wait for the proper Waucoba Saline Road, which is graded and probably passable with 2WD vehicles in dry conditions. We followed this road to Whippoorwill Flat then followed a 4WD spur road west through the forest between Waucoba Mountain and Wunupu Peak, also known as Squaw Peak. We could have parked closer to Waucoba Mountain, but I wanted to combine both peaks into one outing, and our parking spot reflected a trailhead midpoint between the two peaks. Once we could drive no further we parked the car and began our hike. To the northwest was Wunupu Peak, our secondary objective.

We hiked through a high desert forest looking for, but not finding any cairns or signs of past hikers. We weaved around patches of sage brush and followed washes whenever they led in the right direction. The summit was not far away, but there was some nonnegligible elevation to be gained.

Once at the base of the the massif we began to climb more steeply. To the northeast was Last Chance Mountain.

My pace was slower than my liking, and I wondered if Brett would soon become annoyed with my frequent breaks.

Through the trees was Wunupu Peak, our secondary objective for the day.

Brett was too kind to complain, but even if he did, we had plenty of daylight hours to complete our modest little loop. This trip would be much easier than our trip to the Inyo Mountains earlier that year when we traverse from New York Butte to Mount Inyo, however this was the high point of the range.

After a boring slog, the grade slowly eased as we approached the rounded summit about 3.5 hours after leaving the car.

To the south were New York Butte, Keynot Peak and Mt Inyo.

To the southwest were Mt Whitney, Mt Williamson, Mt Keith and University Peak.

To the west were Mt Pinchot and Split Mountain.

To the northwest were North Palisade, Mt Sill, Mt Agassiz, Cloudripper, Mt Humphreys and Mt Tom.

To the north were Glass Mountain Ridge and White Mountain.

To the northeast were Eureka Valley and Last Chance Mountain.

To the southeast were Dry Mountain and Death Valley National Park.

I walked around climbing several boulders which competed for the high point.

I still felt weak, but the hard part was over. I sat down and pecked at some snacks. I couldn’t figure out if I was dehydrated, getting sick, lacking sleep or feeling the effects of altitude. Whatever was bothering me made the summit not as enjoyable as I hoped it would be. After our break, we continued north along the ridgeline.

At first it was hard to see any landmarks though the forest, so we aided our navigation with GPS.

At an opening, Wunupu Peak came into view.

Our descent was mostly smooth sailing, but we ran into some slight bushwhacking across the final quarter mile to the saddle. Once at the saddle we took another break. I still was feeling a bit off, and I didn’t want to climb the remaining 700 ft to the summit of the bonus peak. To the northwest was Andrews Mountain.

To the north was Wunupu Peak.

To the east was Northern Death Valley National Park.

Once I felt ready, we began our climb up the white limestone.

-Ancient Bristlecone Pine

-North Face of Waucoba Mountain

The color of the rocks changed as we climbed higher. The route I took was loose and brushy; not my idea of fun.

After a steep initial climb, we reached a plateau. The summit stood on the northern end.

We reached the summit a few minutes later. It was a brushy summit and views were obstructed. I was a little disappointed. To the west was the Sierra Nevada.

To the east was Northern Death Valley National Park.

To the south was Waucoba Mountain.

I still felt weak, so we took another long break on the summit. Once I was ready, we re-crossed the plateau and descended down the steep eastern slopes of the peak.

The descent was slow and hard on my knees. At a lower point on the mountain, the ground became more loose so we were able to heel plunge, losing elevation quickly.

Once at the toe of the mountain, we followed compacted desert concrete through an open forest. All of a sudden I was feeling great. The lighting made the area incredibly beautiful and the temperature in the shade was optimal. We concluded that I was feeling the effects of altitude earlier in the day.

We followed a wash downhill in the general direction of the car.

We climbed out of the wash at a cairn and used GPS to navigate the rest of the way.

I tried to do the last half mile or so without GPS but Brett wasn't so keen on playing my silly game. It took longer than we would have liked, but we got the job done. I was eager to see Leif and Asaka so we drove straight back to Big Pine.

Asaka and Leif had spent their day in Bishop, which is a big city when compared to Big Pine. I owed them a family day for Sunday.

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perfectirishgifts · 4 years ago

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Ski Resort Dining In A Pandemic - Your Best Bets For Eating This Winter

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/ski-resort-dining-in-a-pandemic-your-best-bets-for-eating-this-winter/

Ski Resort Dining In A Pandemic - Your Best Bets For Eating This Winter

Ski resorts face a lot a of challenges in a pandemic winter like none other, but ski towns and top … [] hotels like the St. Regis Deer Valley, famous for its nightly champagne sabering, are rolling out lots of new ideas to make ding safer and more fun.

The ski industry and ski travel have been heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19. Last season most ski resorts closed a month early and lost spring break and a good chunk of the best snow. This year they face looming limitations on capacity, especially lifts. Many ski-centric states, such as New Mexico, California and Vermont, also have among the nation’s strictest travel rules around the spread of COVID, and in general, leisure travel and flying are still being (rightly) viewed with skepticism by much of the public.

On top of all these issues, one big problem facing ski and snowboard resorts and mountain towns is on the culinary front. Dining and skiing have forever been intertwined, an integral part of the ski day in a way not found in golf or similar pursuits. For everyone but day skiers, dinner is also a requirement of any overnight stay. But many areas are still limiting – or not allowing any – indoor dining, and this summer, in the midst of coping with the pandemic, restaurants and customers all over the country turned to outside tables, from newly blocked off city streets to impromptu beer gardens. But just a few months ago, that looked like a non-starter for the ski industry, which only exists where it is cold, often really cold, especially after dark. If the weather stops people from eating outside in New York, what would it do in Utah and Wyoming?

But much to my surprise, the ski industry got super creative, and just about every major resort and ski town has rolled out new concepts to cater to rationale travelers who are rightly concerned about indoor dining and drinking. More and more evidence has shown indoor gatherings and maskless gatherings to be very risky events, and dining inside combines these two potentially dangerous behaviors while potentially mixing travelers from all over the country.

Several top designers and manufacturers of outdoor recreation and sports gear, from mountaineering equipment to cycling apparel, stepped up at the onset of the pandemic and turned their prowess to making technically better masks, ones that fit well, perform well and have added features like anti-viral treatments and better filtration. For a roundup of some of the best masks on the consumer market, read this.

When guests don’t want to eat in restaurants, one solution is to erect a “yurt village” and offer … [] private meals in each yurt. That’s what the St. Regis Deer Valley did.

Consider the St. Regis Deer Valley, the very first ski hotel in the country that I saw moving early this year to add new, special culinary features to make customers feel safer in the current environment. In 25 years of covering ski travel, I have visited literally every 4 and 5-Star luxury ski hotel in the nation, and there is no doubt that the St. Regis is one of the best. In addition to a superb ski-in/ski-out slopeside location, it has its own direct funicular link with the Deer Valley Resort’s Snow Park base area, so those guests seeking a change of venue can go down and hit such famous options as the iconic Seafood Buffet (in normal years). The resort has a superb spa, full service white glove ski concierge with well-equipped demo rental shop and resort ticket desk, first class guest rooms, more than first class residences, and the famous St. Regis butler services.

It’s a great ski hotel across the board, but the area in which it has always excelled is food and beverage, with a variety of topnotch culinary options, special events like winemaker dinners, and of course the signature St. Regis nightly complimentary champagne sabering demonstration and tasting. Even before COVID, the latter spectacle has been held outside, on the well heated and spacious Mountain Terrace. This eatery was already set up perfectly for outdoor lunch and après, with lots of heaters and firepits, but now the St. Regis has gone overboard. For this season, all three of the hotel’s eateries will offer heated outdoor terrace dining all winter long, including the fine dining RIME and bistro-style Brassiere 7452, which has a three-sided outdoor fireplace for capturing the ski vacation feel.

The ski-in/ski-out St. Regis Deer Valley is one of the best luxury ski hotels in the country.

But the biggie is an entirely new dining experience, opening December 21 – the Yurt Village at The St. Regis Deer Valley. This will serve lunch, après and dinner on the snow at the resort’s “Ski Beach.” The St. Regis jumped on the pandemic creativity trend early and ordered these three custom-made yurts many months ago (yurts are traditional round portable dwellings used by Nomadic people in Central Asia, sort of a spacious tent on steroids, and modern interpretations have become very popular for their size and ease of heating). Each has intricate mahogany lattice, plexiglass stargazing dome, windows overlooking the Wasatch Range, and radiant heat. Each seats up to eight and is individually-themed based on the three 2002 Winter Olympics skiing disciplines hosted at Deer Valley: Slalom, Moguls and Aerials. Menus change weekly, but dinner ($175 per person) might be an amuse Bouche of Morel Tartlet with Brie and Raspberry Tartare; first course of Smoked Utah Trout Chowder with Potato Gallate; second course of Smoked Beet Salad served with Herb Crusted Goat Cheese, Aged Balsamic, Watercress and Pickled Shallots; main course including Forty-Eight Hour Short Ribs served with Potato Gratin, Smoked Hon Himeji, Carrot Puree and Roasted Garlic Jam; or King Salmon Osso Bucco, served with Potato and Leek Brandade and Beurre Rouge; and dessert of Chocolate Almond Tart, Coconut Cream, Candied Pistachios and Dark Chocolate Curls. Optional wine pairings are available in two tiers ($75 or $150).

Most importantly, there is only one seating at each yurt for each meal service, with several hours and an extensive clearing in between each (reservations definitely required!)

That is one of the more dramatic examples of what new and interesting culinary experiences await skiers and snowboarders (except at Deer Valley, where they are still not welcome) this coming season, but it’s not the only one, and creativity is not limited to top tier luxury hotels. Here are some other standout examples.

Telluride is one of the world’s best ski destinations, and has lots of new cool dining features this … [] winter.

Telluride: Telluride is tied with Jackson as my personal favorite ski resort in the United States – and I’ve been to all of them. In fact, the last major ski travel piece I did here at Forbes before the pandemic hit was back in February, 5 Great Reasons To Ski Telluride This Winter. Many things have changed since then, but not the town and resort’s commitment to its customers.

What’s the big deal? How about commissioning the purchase and restoration of 20 old ski gondola cabins that have been turned into private “dining cabins” with heated floors, lights, and individual ventilation systems. They are scattered around the center of pedestrianized Mountain Village, and each seats a single party up to eight – who can order via QR code from 12 different restaurants around the village that will then deliver to the gondola.

That is really cool – and will still be really cool long after this crazy virus is in the rear-view mirror. But it’s not all. Winter enhancement plans also include temporary weatherproof structures adjacent to Mountain Village restaurants, seating up to 24. “Outside dining areas will be more important this winter than ever as public health requirements are expected to continue to limit indoor capacities,” said Mountain Village Business Development and Sustainability Director Zoe Dohnal. “Everyone involved has worked hard to build a strong combination of COVID mitigation strategies for our businesses. We are excited about the unique and inviting ambiance these elements will bring to our village center this winter and years to come.”

This winter, old gondola cars are being repurposed into private dining “bubbles,” like these at the … [] Mountain Tap Brewery in Steamboat, CO

The California Ski Resort/ Alpine Meadows: Like the former NFL Redskins, now the Washington Football Team, the ski resort long known as Squaw Valley is rebranding to a yet to be determined name, but its immediately adjacent sibling Alpine Meadows swill stay the same. In either case, they form one of the biggest and most impressive single ski destinations in North America, with tons of terrain for every ability, though world famous for extreme terrain, shown in many, many ski films over the decades, and Squaw is one of just three Winter Olympic venues in the United States (1960). Last winter I featured them in my ongoing World’s Best Ski Resorts series, with lots of detail on what makes it so good. This year they will have far more outdoor seating than ever before, including expanded deck seating at three major base lodges, adding hundreds of new tables, chairs, heaters, umbrellas and fire pits, as well an all-new food truck in the main base village.

Sun Valley, ID: Just ranked the Number One Ski Resort in North America, the industry’s highest honor, Sun Valley is the nation’s original destination ski resort, and inventor of the chairlift. Not one to stop improving, they just added two mobile eateries at each of its base areas for outdoor dining.

Snowbasin, Utah: Perhaps the least well known truly great ski mountain in the country, Snowbasin hosted alpine races for the Salt Lake Olympics, but will forever be etched in my memory as the location for filming the little-known ski horror movie Frozen (which Ski Magazine called “Hollywood’s Scariest Ski Movie” despite there being no competition whatsoever) – not the more famous (and later) Disney hit of the same title. For this winter, the resort is adding three different food truck-style eateries, at each of its three base areas. Must be a tough pill to swallow, as Snowbasin has arguably the nicest base lodges in the country.

Cities have food trucks, ski resorts have food trucks on treads that can serve right on the slopes, … [] like the “Taco Beast” at Steamboat, CO.

Steamboat, CO: The ski resort now has two on snow “food trucks” on treads, converted from snow cats, one added last winter and one all new. These are very user friendly, just ski right up and order. The “Taco Beast” changes location daily and announces it on social media. In the village of Steamboat Springs, the Mountain Tap Brewery is adding three gondola cars in the style of the Telluride ones mentioned above. I ate at the Aurum Food & Wine restaurant in Breckenridge, CO and it was really good, curated global eclectic cuisine. For instance, it is one of the (very) few places I can say I really enjoyed cauliflower – crispy curried cauliflower with shishito peppers, golden raisins, cashews and a sweet and sour reduction. There is a second location in Steamboat, and both now have heated yurts for up to eight guests, just like the St. Regis Deer Valley above. 3 and 6-course tasting menus are offered ($75 and $115) and reservations are extremely limited.

Breckenridge, CO: Also featuring Aurum Food & Wine and it’s great menus in a yurt setting, same prices as above. Breckenridge is typically the second most popular ski and snowboard resort in the nation, trailing only sibling Vail.

Copper Mountain, CO: Copper Mountain, known for its pedestrianized base areas – and for being the closets of the big mountains on the I-70 corridor to Denver – is adding three notable new options this year. Sawmill Pizza and Taphouse is an all-new restaurant in Copper’s Center Village with extensive outdoor patio seating and heated tables. Sendy’s Taco Truck will debut this season, and the food truck will move throughout the resort based on demand. Because so much of the lodging at the resort is in condos with kitchens, Copper Provisions is a great idea for those who want to eat in safely without going shopping – or cooking. The take n’ bake retailer will operate out of Hasty’s in Center Village, and features meals for families of 4-8 that are designed to be cooked in the oven at the condo. Orders can be placed online or over the phone.

Jackson Hole, WY: Bodega is an already very popular gourmet food shop and sort of bar in the parking lot at the bottom of the resort, a not so hidden gem beloved by locals and visitor alike. It happens to be run by the most successful restaurant group in Jackson, behind many of the top eateries in town (Rendezvous Bistro, Bin 22) and in hotels at the mountain (Il Villagio Osteria). The store has a lot of take and bake gourmet options, sups, chilis, and such, perfect for anyone staying in a condo or rental home with kitchen. But for this winter season, Bodega is kicking it up a notch with a new pandemic-inspired beer and bratwurst garden under a tent outside the shop. They will grill sausages from local artisan butcher Bovine Swine and pour craft beer from Roadhouse, a brewery on Jackson’s town square.

Boyne Mountain Resort, MI: Michigan’s most famous ski mountain, Boyne is eschewing yurts and instead adding five new dining igloos that will provide private seating for groups of up to 10. The igloos are in the Biergarten behind Forty Acres Tavern right in the Village base, and offer the restaurant’s full menu, plus beverages.

The Viceroy Snowmass, CO: A lot of predictions have been made about skiing going back to the old days of people packing brown bag lunches and eating in the parking lot or trailside to avoid on mountain dining altogether. The Viceroy Snowmass (the largest of the four ski mountains comprising the Aspen Snowmass resort) is embracing this nostalgia, with a luxury spin, through its “Gold Bag” lunch program. Guests pre-order from a special menu and get a fancy bagged lunch prepared by the hotel’s culinary team and designed to fit in a ski jacket pocket.

Golden Oldies: While most ski resort have on mountain restaurants with outdoor dining, you usually still have to go inside and wait on line and order. These are not new, but they are exceptions to that rule, and thus perfect for this season.

Ritz-Carlton NorthStar at Lake Tahoe, CA: One of my favorite lunch and après spots in skiing – and perfect this year for anyone skiing NorthStar. The Ritz, perfectly located mid-mountain and trailside, has an outdoor authentic slow smoked southern BBQ shack that you can ski right tup to, order and eat entirely outside. Backyard Bar & BBQ has real deal smoked meats but also wood fired pizzas, burgers, brats, local craft beer and signature cocktails. The Ritz-Carlton NorthStar also happens to be one of the very best luxury ski-in/out hotels in the country, and I wrote a detailed review of it last year here at Forbes.

Bon Vivant, Telluride, CO: Just off the top of a lift, Bon Vivant is a quick trip to Europe, all outdoors, under heaters. Classic French country cuisine and an all-French wine list in a gorgeous open-air setting.

Ajax Tavern, Aspen, CO: Long the power lunch spot in Aspen, the outdoor patio at the Ajax Tavern serves great food – “causal fine dining” – right at the base of Aspen Mountain and is part of the Forbes 5-Star Little Nell, a world-renowned luxury ski hotel.

More from Dining in Perfectirishgifts

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ukenpage · 4 years ago

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THE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN

BY, THE DRIVE-BY-HISTORIANS

In 1874 George Armstrong Custer discovers gold in the heart of South Dakota’s Black Hills. The contrast with all that black made it easier to see. Prospectors poured in even though the Sioux were standing there at the foot of the hills as they came by saying,

“Ah, excuse me, sir may I have a word? You’ll note here on this treaty, no not there, ah, it’s on page 5, yes on page 5 it says that all this gorgeous blackness belongs to us and that would include those little gold bits you see all over them. So regretfully we must ask you to turn around please.”

But the prospectors did not turn around.

So, in the meantime, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were having tea and Crazy Horse’s nephew Humping Toad approached and reported,

“Uncle Crazy, the white men will not go home, and we asked them very politely.”

Crazy Horse reached for a lump of sugar, asking Sitting Bull if he’d like some too. Sitting Bull who never said much shook his head no.

“Very good old boy”. Is that a new scalp hanging from your spear? And you know, you look fabulous.”

said Crazy Horse then turned to his nephew,

“Humping my boy, did you show them the treaty?”

“Yes uncle, we certainly did.”

Crazy Horse slowly turned back to study his tea.

“Well, how gauche, quite inappropriate. this is just not done; we had their solemn word. nephew, get me a white general on the phone please.”

“On the what, uncle?”

“Oh, yes, yes quite right, ah not the phone, I mean go to the nearest fort and tell the white general there that we are ever so sorry for the trouble but I’m afraid a quite unacceptable breach of etiquette is occurring and, again, so sorry, but regretfully we will be forced to take up, well, arms, and arrows and hatchets and other such dreadful things in order to protect our land and our gold, which, sorry old boy is already earmarked to pay for a yet nameless avenue of mega casinos. Oh, it’s gonna be grand, I hope you can, well, pop by some time. Anyway, so in order to expedite this splendid vision could you please be a good chap and send your general Custer and your troops to the little bighorn as soon as possible so that we may massacre them, and thus conclude this matter. I know dreadful business, but apparently necessary, Yours truly and sincerely, Crazy Horse. Did you get all that nephew?

“No uncle, but I recorded it with my phone.”

“Your what?”

“Nothing. Yes, I’ve got it.”

Crazy Horse turned back to Sitting Bull,

“biscuit?”

Custer was the most brash, flamboyant, and frankly gay, officer in the us army. He was confident his superior technology could contain the Indians and that he could seduce, ah, we mean charm, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. He soon received orders to go to the Big Horn Mountains to contain the Sioux and their Cheyenne allies. He was ordered to

“...position yourself and observe but do not attack them.”

This is what the messenger clearly read to Custer, but what Custer heard was,

“…you, as our greatest most flamboyant, and frankly gay, officer should go to the little Big Horn Mountains which contain the Sioux and their Cheyenne allies. Observe and position yourself. Then carry out a brilliant attack on them that will make you immortal.”

On June 25th Custer spotted an Indian village on the banks of the Little Big Horn River. Custer called for his adjutant.

“There’s a village down there, what does that mean?”

“That we should surround it, observe and wait for orders, sir.”

“Exactly, we should attack it and follow our orders!”

“Sir, that, sir, that isn’t what I, sir…”

But Custer was already leading a charge down the hill. The Indians emerged in legend inflated numbers by the millions and destroyed Custer and the cavalry.

Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were attending a garden party at the far end of the village. Crazy Horse leaned toward Sitting Bull and said,

“Did you hear something old boy, some sort of ruckus?”

Sitting Bull shook his head no as more squaws came by to smile and curtsy.

But the victory was brief for the Sioux as the next day cable service went out throughout the village. And just as they were about to strike a deal for satellite, army regulars poured in, chasing them for months through the hills. By October most resistance had ended, Crazy Horse had surrendered, and Sitting Bull and a few warriors fled to Canada where they hid till they ran out of tea and were forced to return to the United States.

In the east, the Battle of Little Big Horn caused much debate. War hawks demanded swift justice and an increase in tank, helicopter and submarine production (could have been used in the river, we suppose).

But others protested and wrote about the injustices imposed on the Indians over the last 100 years, such as denying them their opportunity to be bought and sold as slaves, to bleach their skin to look more white and to be mercifully massacred so as to put them out of their misery.

The American masses were indifferent however, and a systematic plan to deny cable and broadband service to Indians was carried out to isolate and subdue them. The Little Big Horn was their last victory.

And the last time they had cable.

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ayeletinthemountains · 5 years ago

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2019 in Mountains

I’m hopping on the bandwagon and reflecting on a year in review. I don’t make time to write trip reports much these days (I fell off the bandwagon on our van trip, when we were constantly doing cool trips and I just couldn’t keep up [poor me]), so seeing my friend Nikhil write a post summing up his outdoor exploits for the year seemed like a great idea.

Skiing

Since learning to ski in the 2016-17 season, each year has gotten more fun. Typically in winter I focus on the Ogul peak list (a list of peaks in Tahoe, so pretty accessible since most of the roads are plowed; I’m at 35/63 currently), but I’ve learned that seeking summits often doesn’t make for the best skiing. One thing I love about lists though is that it takes me to new places I’d never go otherwise. Some highlights:

Mount Elwell: I wrote a full trip report on this here. This was one of my favorite new areas I got to see. It’s about an hour north of Tahoe, so sees far less visitors, which is always a treat. We saw no one else our whole day in the backcountry, and the views from the summit were spectacular. Plus, we learned about the Plumas Ski Club’s longboard races and checked em out! So much fun. Track

Mount Mildred: Also wrote a trip report on this one here. This peak is behind Alpine Meadows ski resort (where I had a pass this year). It was a pretty long day in terms of mileage for me on skis, so I love seeing the progress I’m making in that regard. Track.

Pyramid/Jacks Desolation Traverse: In late April, given that the big snow year still left good coverage, I did a traverse from Pyramid Peak to Jacks Peak in Desolation Wilderness with friends AJ, Jamie, and Chris. AJ wrote about it here. This was also a long and challenging day for me, being the weakest downhill skier in the group. I didn’t ski the tippy-top of Pyramid (too spooky), but I did manage to ski a bit further down. This day really showed me how great spring skiing can be (and it lends better to summits). Track.

Mount St Helens: Since my older sister Dafna had skied Mount St Helens in the past, I’d had it on my radar and been excited to ski it once I was ready, and this was the year. The skiing is really moderate, the crater is beyond cool, and we made it a family affair! My sisters Ephrat (at 3 months pregnant!) and Dafna joined, along with their partners, Luca and Gil (a first real summit for him! Hiking up on snowshoes, snowboarding down). Mount St Helens is an awesome summit for the hiker/mountaineer learning to ski. I’d happily repeat it someday. Track.

Resort skiing: In 2019 I had the Ikon Pass, which meant mainly skiing Squaw/Alpine. It was my first time skiing at either, and it was a lot of fun, but the traffic was a total nightmare. I had many days where I struggled, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic not moving at all, feeling so trapped and frustrated that we live so far from the mountains. This year I’m back on Epic, and I’m hoping it will be less miserable. Leo and I also took advantage of some of the other resorts on the pass, making trips to Revelstoke, Lake Louise, Banff Sunshine (all in Canada), Alta, and Snowbird.

Rogers Pass: My first (and only) day backcountry skiing in Canada, at such an amazing location. I survived the cold! Track.

I was sick for a good month in winter, which really put my year off to a rocky start and felt like it brought down my fitness a lot. I thought I was getting better and pushed myself really hard for a few days in the backcountry (climbing Anderson Peak with my friend Brice, track), but then I found myself sick again for another two weeks (making me nervous I might not be healthy enough for our Canada trip). I relearned the importance of rest and taking care of yourself.

Ice Climbing

New skill for 2019! Well, technically it started in December 2018 with a trip to the Bozeman Ice Fest, which was an amazing way to learn the basics of the sport. Leo and I both liked it so much that we did three more days of it in Canmore, even hiring a guide to take us up Louise Falls (a 3 pitch climb). Originally I thought I should just know the utmost basics of the sport, but now I find I actually enjoy it and would love to do more of it. I think I could potentially even… lead someday? Which is something I feel pretty defeated about doing in rock climbing. It’s interesting to think about why this doesn’t scare me when rock climbing does. I think it is because in rock climbing I get nervous moving for holds I can barely reach, as opposed to in ice climbing, you can make a hold almost anywhere you like. Leading is still a long ways off for me, of course, but it’s cool to think this might be possible in the future.

Mountaineering/Alpine Climbing

Mount Rainier: After learning the aforementioned basics of ice climbing, we put them to the test on Rainier. Leo and I had attempted Rainier in 2017 with our friend Ryan, but turned back at 13k ft due to bad conditions. This time, Leo, Nikhil, and I climbed the Kautz Glacier route in mid-June. We did a one night trip, camping at 12k feet, right below the Kautz ice section, carrying our gear over the following day and descending the DC. A lot of thoughts on this trip: The most challenging thing for me probably were the stats combined with carrying a very heavy pack. Heavy packs are definitely my biggest weakness and something I’d like to train this year. Our group members and I still all have a lot to learn in terms of glacier navigation and travel. Rainier is a big mountain, and definitely a step above most California summits. I definitely wouldn’t be comfortable climbing it in adverse conditions (California fair-weather climber here!), and it shows the edges of where I can develop more skills to increase my safety margin. The mountain also really showed me why it is such a great training ground for future expeditions. It was a tough trip, but I’d like to back again for more routes. (Plus, we didn’t make it to the high point of the crater! Gotta go back). I felt pretty wrecked for over a week after this trip, really surprised at the recovery time I needed. Track 1, 2.

Arete des Cosmiques: Leo and I made our first trip to Chamonix this year, and it truly is a dream playground. We were lucky to overlap with our friend Chelsea and Michael by coincidence, so we all warmed up by climbing the world-famous Arete des Cosmiques together. We had great weather and it was just all around fun. Track.

Pyramide du Tacul: Also in Chamonix. This was just a good, fun climb in a spectacular setting. Alpine starts in Chamonix are beyond gorgeous. Track 1, 2.

Aiguille de la Republique: This is called the pointiest, most exposed summit in Chamonix! With a description like that, how could we not check it out? To tackle this, Leo and I spent two nights in the Refuge des Envers, which is a decent hike. We got to walk on our first dry glacier, which was beyond cool. The peak itself was pretty challenging, and we technically bailed about 50 feet below the summit, but I was proud of the effort. There was a little bit of everything: glacier approach, spicy scrambling, glorious hand jams, great exposure. It was a long and challenging day, but a good way to push myself. Track 1, 2.

Me touching the point of the Aiguille de la Republique in the first picture, the day before we hiked in.

Mont Blanc: Our last outing in Chamonix was Mont Blanc. After trying and failing many times to get spaces at the Gouter Hut, we had given up on climbing it. A record heat wave for our whole visit had made climbing Mont Blanc via the other main route, Trois Monts (three mountain route), too dangerous, due to a lot of steep snow and passing below seracs. However, at the end of our trip the heat wave passed and we had a great day for a summit. We climbed the Trois Monts route from the Cosmiques Hut (an amazing place to stay! At 11k ft on a glacier with warm food and excellent wifi). It was quite crowded (in my opinion), but the sunrise and views were spectacular. And a new elevation PR for both Leo and me! It was a really special way to close out the trip. Track.

Sierra

So many great adventures in the “backyard” this summer, despite my fitness limiting me. After losing a bunch of fitness at the start of the year, I had another setback by developing some pain in my left knee (patellofemoral pain syndrome). This meant I took nearly 6 months off from running, one of my main ways to keep in shape. I also limited my mountain excursions, usually only doing one day of long hiking/scrambling per weekend, to not push my knee too much. Some Sierra highlights:

Morgan N & Stanford linkup: This really is a lovely day in the Sierra. The mileage is a bit long, but it really doesn’t feel very sloggy at all. The terrain is quite solid 90% of the time, and you get to descend the “greatest sand slope in the Sierra”, coming down from Stanford. Did this peak with new friends Sarah, Peter (who are both also SPS-ers :D), Rob, and Alexandra, and it was a blast. Track.

Banner Peak: A fun one! Took advantage again of the good snow year to climb the snow route up the Ritter-Banner saddle. Got to do this with Leo, which was his first time in Ansel Adams Wilderness. Excited to finish off the pair, since I’d climbed Ritter a number of years ago. Now it won’t feel as incomplete when I look at the Mammoth skyline. Hoping to go back for Clyde Minaret this year with Leo via the climbing route. Track.

Williamson & Tyndall: An overnight with Emily and a new friend, Alex. We hiked in day 1, climbed both peaks day 2, and hiked out day 3 before having some BBQ at the US’s best restaurant in Big Pine. I found both peaks to be really fun (and incredibly popular! Was shocked by the number of people we saw). Aside from sleeping a bit cold at night in my bivy sack, this was mostly a Type 1 fun trip with fun humans, bring my CA 14er count to 13. Shepherds Pass was not as bad as I expected, I’m very happy to say (since, well, I’m going to have to hike it many more times). Track 1, 2, 3.

Labor Day peak extravaganza: Inspired by this Bob Burd trip report, Leo and I planned an excellent “compromise” trip, which was maybe my favorite trip of the summer. We planned to tackle some peaks in the high country of Sequoia/Kings Canyon (SEKI), but chose to enter from the East side, unlike Bob, due to fear of our inability to get permits for Labor Day Weekend (our East side TH had 20 or 30 walk up permits available — the West side had 6 [shared with the very popular Rae Lakes trailhead]). Leo and I hiked in Friday evening, hiking 9 miles to camp near Charlotte Lake. The next morning, we rose early to head over to Charlotte Dome. We climbed the 50 Classic Route on the dome, seeing only one other party (in perfect weather on a 3 day weekend??), climbing it quickly enough to unlock the rest of the trip. We had set a time for ourselves, that if we didn’t summit by a certain time, the rest of the trip wasn’t in the cards. Leo did a great job leading on probably too skinny of a rope and with too little gear… but you make gear tradeoffs when you’re carrying it 40+ miles in a weekend. From Charlotte Dome we hiked up a pretty awful slope to the Gardiner summit ridge. We dropped our packs and did the fun 4th class ridge to the true summit. We then reversed our steps back to our packs, and hurried down the other side of the peak, making camp in the dark. The next day was another hard one. We left camp as is, and hiked over to Clarence King, a peak with one of the more challenging summit blocks in the Sierra. We climbed another miserable loose slope, and found ourselves at the summit block. Leo, again, led it in good style. My height made it really hard for me to pull the very exposed move on to the summit block, and I nearly gave up. But, Leo found a way to safely belay me with the rope running over the summit block itself as an “anchor”, and I managed to summit! From there we hiked back over near camp, and I managed to pull together the energy to summit our fourth and final summit of the trip, Mount Cotter. This was a really fun class 2 scramble, that I was really thankful I found the energy for, since it’s ~30 mi round trip from the trailhead. We made it back to camp right before dark, and slept like rocks. The next day was a looong hike out ending in a downpour/thunder storm, before driving the long way back home. This trip felt like such an amazing way to really get out there in the Sierra and explore some epic spots, covering a lot of ground and carrying as little gear as possible. I’d love to do more overnights entering Friday evening after work this year. Track 1, 2, 3, 4.

Middle Palisade: A really fun day with Emily. This type of day is pretty much my favorite way to spend a day in the mountains – moving quickly over interesting terrain in a gorgeous setting. I’d been nervous that this would just be a total slog, but it was far from it. Very little of the terrain sucked, the scrambling was fun, and of course the views were great. I’m really excited to come back for the other peaks in the area now. Brought my CA 14er count to 14/15! Track.

Mount Hooper: Holy smokes the western Sierra is also awesome. I had only ever been to this area when I hiked through it on the JMT. I’d never driven the crazy Kaiser Pass road out into the west side. Leo and I had an excellent “compromise” weekend hiking Mount Hooper, visiting Mono Hot Springs, and doing some climbing on Tollhouse Rock. Again, new places that my list took me that ended up being really special. Really excited to go back. Track.

East Buttress of Middle Cathedral: My fifty classic for the year! But really, at least once a year I need to go to Yosemite Valley and climb something fun with Leo. It’s a good way to make me appreciate rock climbing and spend time doing something Leo loves. Plus, well, Yosemite has some pretty good climbs I guess. 😜 This was a really fun one with excellent climbing on it, and with only 3 parties on it on a gorgeous weekend day! One of them including Hans Florine, who was very nice. 😄 Rock climbing isn’t so bad sometimes.

Desert

Not too much time in the desert this year, unfortunately, aside from a JTree trip over Memorial Day Weekend, and a week in Sedona over Thanksgiving (though it rained/snowed half the time). Sedona is another awesome playground that I’m surprised doesn’t see more climbers. The towers are endless and stunning. I love the crazy features that form there. Given the poor weather, we didn’t get to do too much, but our climbs of The Fin as a group of 5 (track), and of Queen Victoria with Daiyi (track) both stand out as really fun outings.

Personal mountain philosophy

To the outside, it probably seems like I go on endless trips effortlessly, but that’s definitely not the case. I have an amazing partner, but our outdoor interests don’t fully line up, and that caused me a lot of frustrations in 2018. I hadn’t done a great job of fostering outdoor friendships, so it put a lot of pressure on my relationship with Leo, feeling like he was my only partner and we had to spend every weekend together. In winter, it’s great, since we both love to ski (though Leo is a much stronger skier than me, so I sometimes hold him back), but in summer it was a problem. Leo’s favorite activity is climbing, and climbing hard. When we climb together, it really limits the grades and objectives he can go after. On top of that, I don’t have nearly as much of an interest in hard climbs, and am all about long scrambles. We also both have a lot of our own mountain goals, and we weren’t able to accomplish them by spending most weekends together.

This summer, I made a concerted effort instead to spend less time with Leo and develop friendships with others. It was scary to put myself out there, reaching out to folks on social media or asking other friends to introduce me, but it definitely paid off in the end. I added some people I really clicked with to my network, and got to have some really great days with them in the mountains. I still enjoy solo days in the mountains as well, but I see a lot of value in seeking out others to share those experiences with whenever possible. I think it’s still good for me to do at least one solo trip a summer, but, generally, spending all those hours driving and hiking alone is something I want to avoid when possible. On top of having more friends I’ve connected with, I also enjoy the weekends I do spend with Leo more now, not feeling the stress that “oh no, this weekend I’m not accomplishing my goal again”. It also made me appreciate when we reconnect at the end of the weekend, swapping stories of how our trips went and cheering each other on. I feel more balanced and fulfilled, and I want to keep chasing that.

Also one weekend we took an offer from a photographer to do a free “elopement” photo shoot, to help build her portfolio. Cue me having to explain to everyone that we are not engaged or married, we just did a fun, different thing in the mountains for once.

Things I am excited about in 2020:

Making more mountain friends, spending more time with my current ones.

I just left my job, and won’t be starting my new one till the end of March! I’m spending a few weeks in Ecuador starting in late January, aiming to climb some of the high volcanoes there. I see this as great training for future expeditions like Denali. Hoping for good weather!

For the aforementioned trip, I’ve been training quite hard for the first time in my life. I am nervous, since my knee really prevented me from keeping up my fitness in 2019, and I’m not fully back from that yet. I am doing one of the pre-made training plans from Uphill Athlete, and it’s been the first time I’ve had a focused training plan. I am impressed with just how much cardio I can squeeze into one week :-P I’m excited to keep it up this year, and hopefully have a very strong summer season.

Getting better at skiing. And a hut trip to ski in the Selkirk mountains in Canada in March at the Bill Putnam hut, before starting my new job.

Spending some days at the Sierra Challenge. I’ve never participated before, but it’s about time I make the time to check it out!

Clyde Minaret via the 5.8 50 Classic.

Lone Pine Peak via the North Ridge.

Split Mountain! Ideally via the St Jean Couloir, but if not, then via the summer route. This would be my last California 14er :)

Boundary Peak (the highest peak in Nevada, on the border between California and Nevada (you see what they did there?). I drove past it last week and am now enamored with it.

Reaching 100 peaks on the SPS list (currently at 85/100).

A potential Orizaba trip over the winter holidays!

….maybe a big wall with Leo.

Something else you want to climb together??

#2019

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