The Northstar session on Sunday was great. A light snowfall blanketed the mountain with cold temps and great skiing all around. A bit cold. We spent the prior night in a cramped one bedroom place in Tahoe City to avoid the morning commute. Luckily,the place offered a FREE real breakfast in the mess hall. It was excellent; french toast, eggs, waffles, you name it. At Northstar, I ordered the BBQ salmon dish which froze up within 2 seconds at the top of the mountain. To make matters worse, it came with a side of "hot" beans and rice. Well, cold beans and rice. At least my Guinness was at the right temp. Per skiing, we pretty much covered the whole mountain and found a ripping run that is usually closed off, called "the Woods". At day's end, we found a nice Hawaiian place in Auburn called the Kau Kau Hawaiian Food. Like the temps at the top of the mountain, the Kau Kau was freezing inside. Luckily, the food was good.

The following weekend, a trip was organized by a friend of mine for South Tahoe. We cramped 14 people in a 3 bedroom place. It was crazy. People and mice everywhere. We hit up Heavenly's Nevada side and took up a few runs way too many times, e.g., Olympic Express at the end of the day. The best runs were the gully trails below Olympic Express. Lots of banking the sides and carving the top. The difficulty was that contrast was pretty low towards the end of the day. So manuevering the carves we a bit tough at times. For lunch, we ate at the Boulder Lodge and one of folks found a new, unopened can of Pringles underneath one of there table ad boxes. It was tasty. I wore the Banana suit for this session given the size of our group. I was easy to spot and everybody seemed to like the Banana. So, next time, bring your costumes not for a "costume" party but for the slopes! At night, we stocked up on Pizza Hut's "any size, any toppings, for $10" and played two cool games called, Celebrity (combination of gestures, cranium, and memory), and Mafia (a who-did-it game). Fun times!

James