We arrived at Alta/Snowbird ski resorts, and noticed how warm it was. These gentlemen were the parking attendants at Alta.
Kristina noticed these folks with their SKI RATS license plate and asked to take their photo. They were on a 10 day ski road trip.
Alta ski resort is 79 years old and only allows skiing (not snowboarding) at the resort. They are part of the Mountain Collective, the passes we are using on our ski road trip.
At Snowbird we spotted this sign warning about moose crossing the parking lot.
We didn’t see any moose, but we did see a bear.
Or rather a bear jacket on this skier.
The weather was quite warm our first day to ski at Alta. If you look closely, the SKI RATS are behind us on the chair lift. We saw them a few times that day.
The next day we drove to Soldier Hollow, a nordic center that was developed for the 2002 SLC Winter Olympics. Pete is in front of the day lodge.
Inside there are Douglas fir beams and a vaulted ceilings. Made from a salvaged railroad trestle that originally crossed the Great Salt Lake, the ceiling gives a rustic and impressive feel to the day lodge interior.
Unfortunately all the warm weather had melted the snow, so we just enjoyed the scenery of Wasatch Mountain State Park. Across from the day lodge is a golf course with a lovely club house. It was built in 2004, well after the winter Olympics.
This is the historic Tate Barn. It was reconstructed in 2002 and served as the entrance to the Soldier Hollow Olympic venue.
And here’s the view of the barn from the other side, looking towards Deer Creek State Park and Reservoir.
While driving around we spotted this newly constructed house made of salvaged lumber, another example of the theme of reusing wood in the buildings here.
We did get some weather on the day we skied at Snowbird, but it was still a warm storm so it felt more like freezing rain than snow.
This year we also visited our friend Manoj and his family at their lovely home in SLC.
Their dog Bella remembered us, and she was fun to play with.
Manoj’s wife Divya is an amazing cook, and she cooked a Kerala, India meal of chicken, coconut stew and appam. We ate with our hands, and the food was delicious!
Divya made the appam pancakes in a saucepan with a rounded bottom, so that the pancakes have a thick center. The batter is fermented and has a lovely tangy flavor.
Bella was very aware of the chicken dish. It was clear to us that dogs don’t use their eyes as much as their noses to know the world.
We spent a night in their charming guest room, and then all too soon it was time for us to be on our way.
We drove south to Las Vegas, and saw even more colorful rock formations.
Here are Ruff and Ready, Pete’s sister Denise’s pets. Their lovely black coats look nice against Denise’s new red couches.
We went to Lee Canyon, the ski resort where Pete and his siblings learned to ski. For more than ten winters, Pete's family skied here every weekend.
We’ve been seeing Subaru cars at all the downhill ski resorts, with the Subaru co-branded (in this case) with Lee Canyon.
Lee Canyon even has a replica of the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
When Pete was a kid there were just two lifts up the mountain, and now there are still only two chair lifts. Fortunately the original rope tow was long ago replaced, and both chair lifts have been upgraded.
But they reused the chairs from the original lift as seating in the outdoor patio area.
Here’s the view from the Chair One chairlift. The building with the solar panels is where we ate lunch.
And here’s the view from the top of the hill. It was fun to ski at Lee Canyon and to reminisce about the place.
Of course we had to add a Lee Canyon sticker to our SkyBox.
We took the scenic route back and noticed that the Joshua trees (Yucca Brevifolia) were starting to bloom.
The flowers are called panicles. The Joshua trees only bloom if they get rain at the right time and if there was a winter freeze; Clearly both happened with this year's El Niño.
We drove to Mammoth, CA. We spent one day cross country skiing around Mammoth Lakes.
This is a close of Crystal Crag Peak that is over 3,000 meters tall.
In the summertime there are cabins and a marina on Mary Lake. But Pete couldn’t figure out how to follow the sign in the winter time.
Signs like these explain the gold rush history of this area. There’s been so much snow this year that the signs look dwarfed.
And there’s been a lot of storms this winter, including one that folded this tree over.
For some reason there are a lot of schlocky bear statues in the town of Mammoth.
We overheard some locals talking about the black bears waking up from their winter hibernation, but we’re pretty sure they weren’t referring to these bears.
The reason we came to Mammoth was to downhill ski; Mammoth is part of the Mountain Collective pass and is our fifth ski destination on our road trip. During our first downhill day it snowed about 13 cm, so we had to dig out our car at the end of the day!
The next day was a Saturday, so lots of people were out skiing. It looks deceptively warm in this photo, but truthfully it was windy and cold, and the fresh powder from yesterday turned into crusty crud that was hard to ski on.
After 26 days of skiing this season, unfortunately Kristina took a bad fall and sprained her knee. She opted to ride down in a ski patrol toboggan.
But, always the trooper, she flashed a peace sign as she was secured into the sled. She knew that her ski season was over, but she appreciated that she’d been able to ski 26 days in 2016.
We left Mammoth and drove up to the Bay Area to stay with Cynthia and Humberto (C&H). Kristina needed to completely rest her knee for a few days. C&H’s cat Nero enjoyed lots of lap time while Kristina lay on their couch.
We took our niece Abby to Santa Cruz to tour the University of California campus.
From the left are Sienna (Abby’s friend), Abby and Kristina in front of the historic lime kiln on the campus. Kristina used crutches to get around for two weeks.
We celebrated St Patrick’s Day with C&H by eating corned beef with cabbage and potatoes.
Then we drove up to Tahoe with C&H and their boys for the final skiing of the season. The house we rented in Tahoe Donner was very comfortable. This photo shows the upstairs living and dining rooms.
This is the view of the porch that looks out onto lots of evergreen trees.
It hadn’t snowed in about a week, and the six of us spent time playing with the Xbox with Kinect game system. This photo shows Humberto and Pete playing ping pong - it took awhile to get used to not having a paddle and just swinging your arm to “hit” the ball.
Cynthia won almost all the competitions, including the pentathlon and the dance off. But everyone had fun. Here are C&H’s boys Emilio and Julian doing their own Just Dance dance off.
Kristina drove down to pick up Abby and our nephew Jeremy so they could snowboard with us for a few days. And it snowed!
Humberto was brave enough to go out on the deck barefoot to check out the fresh powder.
Cynthia and everyone else were content to test out the powder on the ski slopes.
Emilio is in the front, Jeremy is snowboarding on the left, and our friend Eric is on the right.
Here’s the whole group of downhill enthusiasts: Cynthia, Emilio, Eric, Jeremy and Abby. Pete took the photo.
Coincidentally Eric was up skiing at the same time we were in Tahoe, so it was fun to spend time with him.
Here are Pete, Emilio and Abby at Alpine Meadows riding up the Sherwood chairlift.
And just ahead of them are Jeremy, Cynthia and Eric.
Everyone got along really well. This photo shows Emilio and Jeremy relaxing and waiting for the rest of the folks to catch up.
Notice all the snow on Emilio’s head. Jeremy is also called “Jeremy Dylan, the little villain.” JD took off on his snowboard right after he’d thrown snowballs at Emilio.
And here’s the family photo of Cynthia, Emilio, Abby, Kristina and Julian in the front, and Jeremy, Humberto and Pete in the back.
We got to share a few meals together, like this taco feast that Humberto cooked for all of us.
Pete is dancing with Bentley the black bear (the house mascot) while Julian chillaxes in the comfy recliner.
Julian is giving Bentley a bear hug!
Pete is encouraging Bentley to drink some wine.
Cynthia found these bear paw hot pads, and got in touch with her inner bear.
Bentley likes wearing the bear paw hot pads when he’s makin' bacon.
Everyone enjoyed Bentley, including Jeremy.
After four days of fun, C&H and their boys had to head back home. We stayed another two days with Abby and Jeremy, so they could enjoy more snowboarding. Here’s Abby having fun.
Jeremy loves the terrain park and hitting the jumps.
Look at that air! Pete skied 30 days on our ski road trip, going down 100,000 vertical meters and skiing close to 700 kilometers!
We drove back to the Bay Area and enjoyed getting together with friends and family. Pete’s Mom cooked us a delicious lunch of meatloaf, pop-overs and quinoa salad.
Kristina was glad there was plenty of this delicious salad.
We had lunch at Namu Gaji, a tasty Korean restaurant in the Mission. This is their lunch special.
And this is bibimbap, a spicy rice dish served in a hot stone bowl, and the reason for Pete's happy smile.
We met our friends Tajel and John at The Perennial for dinner.
The Perennial has an inspiring sustainability model that limits their carbon footprint. Here's a link to an in-depth Eater article about it.
We learned about aquaponics, their cycle of vegetable and fish production.
And we shared a wonderful meal while catching up with our friends. In front is potato confit with clam bagna cauda and radishes. Behind it are cauliflower toasts, and the bread is made from a perennial grain called kernza that tasted delicious.
Pete ordered the Devil Gulch pork with smoked yams and greens, yum!
While we were in Colorado Kristina bought a 2,000 piece puzzle of the world.
And with Cynthia's help we finally finished it!
Happy Easter, everyone! We'll be celebrating Easter with Pete's family at his Mom's house. Next we'll go to Las Vegas for three weeks to help Pete's sister Denise recover from knee replacement surgery.
