Skiing at Sierra-at-Tahoe 2017-04-14

Skiing at Sierra-at-Tahoe

2017-04-14

Kids were off on Spring Break, so we were planning to go ski Thu, Fri, Sat as the last ski trip of this season. The weather forecast indicated it was snowing all of Thursday, though, so we postponed one day and went Fri, Sat, Sun instead.

Hubby just purchased a wider, more aerodynamic, and better built Yakima ski rack (used) off of Craigslist for $130 to replace our very cheapie non-aerodynamic BVG ski rack because it won't fit 5 skis. He had also checked out prices of some skis/bindings online, but couldn't find good deals like what our sister-in-law got with the demo ski last time from Sierra. So, he borrowed VL's skis again and planned to check out the demo/rental skis at Sierra.

Friday

We followed the same routine of leaving our house at the ungodly hour of 4:45am Friday morning and arrived at Sierra at 7:55am. Despite getting there super early, we still ended up parking rather far because Lot B wasn't open yet. They were still plowing all the snow in the parking lot that had piled up from Thursday's snowing, so we ended up having to park in Lot A which was filling up rather fast. Little J was fascinated by all the snow machines plowing and shoveling snow, and all 3 boys had fun climbing up and sliding down the large piles of snow.

It was very sunny and beautiful weather, and fresh powder covered everything everywhere due to all the snowfall on Thursday. The patio, tables, chairs, and roofs that were bare on previous trips were now all white with snow. This was perfect skiing condition! It was pure bliss gliding over the buttery soft snow. Unfortunately, Little J seemed tired and only skied a few runs on Broadway before he wordlessly skied directly to the Solstice Eatery tables rather than to the chair lift line. He complained he was hungry, so I gave him some cheerios to munch on. Afterwards I walked him around, did some reading to him, and let him play games on my phone.

Hubby and the Older J's joined us around 10:20am. They were all hungry early since we started skiing early that day, but Solstice Eatery didn't start serving food until 11:00am, so Hubby went to the Main Lodge to buy some food and bring it back. Little J complained that his stomach hurt and didn't eat much. A lady at the table next to us invited Little J to play construction trucks with her 4-year old son. She said her son didn't like ski school, and the construction trucks kept her son busy for 6 hours the day before, haha. OMG, Little J was ecstatic! He was all over the piles of snow next to the tables, using the trucks to plow, shovel, scoop, and dump snow. I told the lady that her idea of bringing those trucks was pure genius, haha. Those trucks pretty much kept Little J happily occupied for the rest of the day.

After lunch, Hubby watched Little J while I skied with the Older J's. Hubby had already taken the Older J's on a bunch of blue runs in the morning, so they only wanted to ski mainly green runs after eating. After a few green runs, though, they were tired and wanted to go back to the table. I decided to go for one more run on my own to try out Lower Main (the steepest blue run). Haha, I stood at the top of Lower Main and gazed down with quite a bit of trepidation. I couldn't believe I had skied down Lower Main more than a decade ago with relative ease, yet now my heart was pounding just looking down the slope. Out of shape, out of practice, and gettin' old, I guess, haha. I managed to ski down without falling, but it was definitely ungraceful and slow going. I had to stop once just to catch my breath, haha.

After going back to the table, I swapped with Hubby. None of the boys wanted to ski more. All of them were happily playing with the construction trucks and piles of snow, hahaha. Hubby finished his solo skiing around 2:00pm. For some reason, all of us were pretty tired that day, so we decided to call it quits and pack up. As soon as we said we needed to leave, Little J threw a fit and started crying and screaming. He still wanted to play with the trucks, especially the backhoe loader. It took quite some time and lots of convincing before he finally calmed down and stopped crying, sigh.

We drove to Aston Lakeland Village Resort where we had booked a 1 BR townhome for 2 nights through Chase using points. We had requested a unit with a washer and dryer, and they ended up giving us a 2 BR townhome with a loft. It was a nice 3-level unit, and of course the boys loved going up and down the stairs playing. While I unpacked and settled in, Hubby drove to Safeway to buy rotisserie chicken, bread, white corn, broccoli, salmon, pasta, and ice cream. I cooked salmon using the sous vide that I brought, then pan fried to make salmon with encrusted sesame. Yum yum.

Saturday

Saturday morning we managed to leave the townhome at a record 7:50am. We wanted to arrive at Sierra by 8:30am to get closer parking, which meant we needed to leave the resort by 8:00am. Hubby wanted to eat the complimentary breakfast, which we thought we could do in 10 minutes. Of course we couldn't finish in 10 minutes. We didn't finish eating until 8:15am, and arrived at Sierra at 8:45am. So, we ended up parking a bit far.

Snow was very icy in the morning, a far cry from Friday's lovely snow conditions. Fortunately there was still sun, which served to soften the snow later. Little J was still tired and only skied a few Broadway runs before he decided to ski directly to the Solstice Eatery tables again. And asked for cheerios again. And walked him around again. He asked where all the construction trucks were, hahaha, and I told him the little boy with the construction trucks hasn't arrived yet. "Why??" he asked.

Around 11:00am, Little J kept complaining he was hungry and wanted to eat chicken tenders, so after he repeated his request several times, I finally relented. He complained it was too windy outside and wanted to sit inside, so I moved all our stuff to a table inside, then went to get some chicken tenders for him. Unfortunately, it was still rather early and there were no chicken tenders ready yet. We had to wait for them to fry some up. By the time we finally got the chicken tenders, Hubby and the Older J's arrived, but they wanted to sit outside. After some back and forth, we finally convinced Little J to sit outside as well, so we moved all our stuff back outside. Hubby wasn't hungry yet and still wanted to ski, so it was Mama and the boys enjoying the early lunch.

The boys and I looked at the trail map to see what other trails we wanted to try. I felt Sugar-n-Spice was too long for Little J to try, and wanted to see if there were other shorter green options. On paper it looked like the slower Nob Hill double chair lift dropped off at the top of a green run going from Spur to Ego to Corkscrew to Echo to Broadway, so the Older J's and I went to go try it out. Since this lift only fit 2 people, I decided to go first and have the Older J's sitting together in the chair behind me. After I got on the lift and was in the air, I heard a yell behind me. When I turned around I saw Middle J half sliding off the chair lift about 5 feet off the ground. He couldn't manage to stay on the chair, and I watched in disbelief as he slowly slid off and dropped onto the snow below. His skis snapped off when he made contact with the ground. The lift operator stopped the lift and went over to help Middle J. I cried out to him asking if he was OK, and he replied that he's OK. Whew, big sigh of relief. I asked him what happened, and he said the chair was too high and he couldn't quite get on :/ The lift operator dragged his skis up, then dragged Middle J back up to the loading area and helped him put his skis back on. She then asked one of the ladies in the next chair to relinquish a seat to Middle J, started the lift, and helped Middle J get on the seat. When we got to the top, I explained to the 2 boys that it's important when getting on and off the chair lift to hold both ski poles in one hand and leave the other hand free to grab the chair, and if necessary using that free hand to hoist yourself onto the chair. Both Middle J and Oldest J had developed the bad habit of holding one ski pole in each hand while getting on and off the lift, leaving no hands free. In addition, I explained that when getting off the lift should not be using the poles to push off. The poles might trip up the person next to you on the lift.

After that tidbit, we were off, and luckily no more incidents for the rest of the day, hah. The run itself was pretty good. I think next season we can have Little J try that run. The boys wanted to ski down Lower Main for just the initial part and then cross over to Corkscrew, so we did that on the next run. Both of them ended up falling when trying to maneuver down the steep Lower Main slope into the narrow Corkscrew entrance, but they did it and were off again in no time.

After a couple more runs the boys were tired and wanted to take a break, so we skied back to the tables. It was a bit windy and cool outside, so we moved inside, and Hubby went on his own to ski. After resting a bit, Middle J said he wanted to ski, but Oldest J didn't want to ski anymore. I told Middle J he could just keep looping on Broadway and see if he can meet up with Daddy, so he went outside to ski. After some time, Little J started getting bored and fussy, so I finally took him outside to see if we could spot Middle J skiing. We couldn't see Middle J, but Little J said he wanted to go ski more. So I took him to go get our skis, and he saw the little boy with the construction trucks. Hahaha. There went any idea of skiing. He immediately ran over, grabbed a couple trucks and started plowing snow. I had to remind him to ask the other boy for permission first. Then I asked him if he wanted to go ski, and he answered with a resounding "Nope!"

In the afternoon when Hubby got back, he went to check Lost & Found to see if we could find Little J's lost mitten from the previous trip, and voilà! He actually found Little J's mitten. He jokingly said we should just go get gloves from the Lost & Found bin for the boys next year because there are so many, haha. After that, Hubby went to check out the demo and rental skis. He came back saying that there's a pair of skis his size that was rented for only 2 seasons and still in very good condition selling for $270. However, many skis were rented out already for the day, so they told Hubby to come back either at the end of the day after the rentals are returned or early the next morning before people start renting.

It was close to 3pm already, the boys didn't want to ski anymore, and I was lazy to change into my ski boots, so I told Hubby to go ski some more, and I started packing up. The little boy then told Little J that he had to pack up his trucks because he was leaving, and Little J went ballistic. He cried and thrashed in the snow, screaming "Nooo!!" It took much longer this time to calm him down.

After Hubby came back, I went to go get the car and park it in the loading/unloading area. Once we loaded everything up, it was past 4pm, so we all went to the ski rental office to check out skis for Hubby. Another pair of Nordica skis was available for the same price in Hubby's size with much better Marker bindings than the previous Rossignol skis Hubby had looked at. The Sierra rental guy recommended the Nordica skis as a better deal because of the superior bindings, and also because it's lighter and less fatiguing to ski than the heavier Rossignol skis. Hubby put the Nordica skis on hold to try out for the next day.

We drove back to the townhome. Since we still had enough left over food, we decided to just finish all the food instead of going out. I started the laundry, and we all lounged and relaxed, watching TV and playing board games.

After dinner and laundry was done, we packed up most of the luggage. Unfortunately, one of Middle J's gloves ended up filled with water after the wash. Even after wringing it out and drying in the dryer, it was dry on the outside but sopping wet on the inside. I couldn't use the auto-sensing function on the dryer, and the manual option had a max run time of 30 minutes. I ended up having to wake up several times during the night to restart the dryer for that one stubborn glove!

Sunday

Sunday morning Hubby and I woke up before 7:00am, packed up remaining items, and started loading stuff into the car. We left the townhome at 7:30am, woo hoo! We had time to enjoy a leisurely complimentary breakfast, left the resort at 8:00am, and arrived at Sierra at 8:30am, snagging a close parking spot.

Weather was beautiful and sunny. Hubby went straight to the ski rental office to pick up the skis he put on hold while the boys followed me on Broadway. After a few runs on Broadway, Hubby came back with his new skis and took the Older J's to the blue runs. I took Little J on a new Easy Street run, which had a nice curvy path. He really liked the curvy run and kept saying, "I wanna ski more. I wanna ski Easy Street." Little J made up for his 2 previous days of scanty skiing. He skied non-stop for 1.5 hours in the morning before turning into the tables.

Hubby and the Older J's joined us soon after. Middle J and Oldest J were both excited, telling me that they skied down Lower Main. Man, kids have no fear whatsoever, haha. Hubby said his skis were soooo fast. The skis were stiff enough to cut through the clumps of snow on the blue runs, and he gathered so much speed that he almost couldn't control them, haha. He said he needed to work out his legs more to control the skis, hahaha. We enjoyed lunch in the sunshine outside, with Little J bobbing up and down to the sounds of Calypso music.

After lunch, I told Little J to take Daddy on Easy Street, and he was very eager to show Daddy. We all went up on Easy Rider Express lift together and made a run down Easy Street. I then took off to Grand View Express with the Older J's while Hubby stayed with Little J. Little J got tired after a few runs on Easy Street, and Hubby held him to sleep inside Solstice Eatery.

It was around 1:30pm now. The sun disappeared behind the clouds, and the wind picked up. The gusts were so strong that it was actually stopping Middle J's skis on the flatter sections. I put my ski goggles on to avoid the wind drying out my eyes, but the already low visibility was made worse by the tinted goggles. Oldest J fell going down Broadway, and didn't want to ski anymore. After helping him up, he went back to the tables, but Middle J had already skied down to Grand View Express. I went on one more run with Middle J, but he was also getting tired. He leaned on me on the chair lift, and took a break 2/3 of the way down, just plopping down on the snow to rest. By 2:00pm it was snowing. The snow was flying horizontally due to the wind!

Little J was still blissfully napping on Hubby when we got back. We swapped, and Hubby went out to pack up all the stuff to go home. Little J woke up when I took him outside in the flying snow to get to the car.

15 minutes into the drive home, the snow turned to very heavy rain with low visibility. There was quite a bit of traffic on the way back, and we ended up stopping in Pleasanton to eat dinner at Kaki Sushi. They gave us complimentary edamame and fish tempura. We ordered a bunch of sushi rolls and a bento box. All the food was very fresh and tasty. Little J was enjoying all the different kinds of food so much. The waitress even noticed and said, "He's so good!"

All in all, it was a more relaxing trip staying 2 nights vs. just 1 night, we made it out of our lodging on time in the morning, and we only had 1 incident this time! What an improvement, woo hoo! Maybe next season we won't have any incidents, hah :)

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