Tahoe, January 19-21, 2007

It's an annual tradition for dorms at Stanford to head up to Tahoe during the first few weeks of Winter Quarter. I've been on one each of my four years at Stanford, and each was plagued, in my opinion, by numerous problems or complaints. For example, Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year snow-trips had numerous complaints - 1) Too many people crammed in a house, 2) Having to sleep on a hardwood floor due to #1, 3) No food because the dining hall messed up our order, 4) No time to ski since rentals took so long to get, and 5) Headaches from the high altitude/falling/sun/dehydration. So, as an RA, I finally was responsible for helping plan one of these events, and for what it's worth, I give credit for anyone who takes the time and effort to plan such a trip. It's quite and undertaking and something you wouldn't realize until you did it yourself. We had originally delegated responsibility to a snow-trip committee, which did do a great job ordering food, a bus, a house to stay in, and group lift tickets and rentals. Unfortunately, in the final few days before the trip began, I suddenly became responsible for making sure everyone signed waivers, paid money for lift tickets and rentals, and was where they needed to be every hour of the day. And that took a long time, but in the end, we had a gorgeous house to stay in that was carpeted with plenty of sleeping space, the weather was beautiful, we had plenty of good food, and no hiccups with the bus, lift tickets, or rentals.

Logistics aside, skiing was great. I hadn't gone since last year and I try to make the most of my day, skiing from 9AM-4PM. I hit up plenty of advanced slopes and had plenty of fun flying down the mountainside at breakneck speed. The weather was beautiful - in the upper 40s and clear skies, but there wasn't a lot of snow on the ground, meaning some areas were a bit icy while other black diamond runs were closed all together. Also, I decided to take my camera up on the slopes of Heavenly. Unfortunately, my camera battery was already on its last breath, so I only took a few pictures. Although pictures are supposed to capture the essence of a place, the view of Lake Tahoe from Heavenly and being 10,000 feet above sea level is an experience that cannot be captured on film. The crisp, cold air, the smell of evergreen trees, the panoramic view of Tahoe. Here's a shot of the sunrise from our house:

A view of Lake Tahoe from the slopes:


A wider shot from the same location: