Skiing at Sierra-at-Tahoe

2018-03-03


The boys were getting better at skiing, but we all still didn't have a high degree of control skiing down the blue runs. Making it down like an elephant stomping is a far cry from a graceful dance gliding down the mountain. We wondered whether we should take some private lessons to improve, but as with every other instance when we sought answers, we first turned to trusty old Google and YouTube. For a few nights, we gathered around the TV as a family to watch ski lessons. All the boys wanted to jump immediately to the advanced lessons, hah. However, the intermediate lessons on parallel turns were the most pertinent for us. We were missing a few key subtleties, like gradually and seamlessly shifting weight to turn, making rounded S-turns as opposed to sharp zig zags, ending a turn by going slightly up the slope to slow down and control the speed, and rolling the skis onto their edges for more grip and control. We were all excited to try out the newly learned techniques.

The forecast called for lots of snow Wednesday through Saturday, with sunny skies and clear weather on Sunday. We debated whether to do a one-day ski trip on Sunday.  However, Hubby had to leave our house by Sunday evening 8:00pm to catch a flight from SFO for a 2 week business trip to Singapore and Taiwan.  If we skied Sunday, we'd have to leave the ski resort early or perhaps stay longer and drive directly to SFO afterwards.  Hubby couldn't stomach the idea of flying out without taking a shower, and there were packing logistics to deal with trying to fit all his luggage in the already cramped SUV.  By mid-week, the weather shifted, calling for clear skies Saturday morning with light snow in the afternoon, so we decided to head up Saturday morning to ski and leave early on Sunday.

Saturday

We'd done so many ski trips that packing was fairly routine by now, and didn't take as long. Saturday early morning we got up at 4:30am to load up the food in the fridge and get ourselves dressed.  At 4:45am we got the older boys up, dressed, and in the car without a hitch, followed by me carrying down the still sleeping Little J to put in the car seat. By 5:00am Hubby pulled the car out of the garage, and we were on our way.  For some reason, the older J's didn't go back to sleep for a long time, not until 6:30am. Hubby started yawning non-stop around 7:30am, so we swapped driving, and all the boys woke up. We had packed bread, salami, cheese, biscuits, and banana for breakfast, which they all ate in the car. Around Placerville, we already started seeing snow, and shortly after, chain control was in effect.  We happily passed all the cars parked on the side putting chains on, but the going was very slow. So much snow had fallen (5 feet) during the storm that the roads were not cleared yet and still covered in snow. It took an additional hour to get to Sierra ski resort, arriving at 9:30am. The snow wasn't cleared out from parking lot B yet, so we parked at the loading/unloading zone to unload the boys and all our gear. By the time Hubby went to park the car, he lucked out and got the 6th slot in lot B which had just opened.

It still took half an hour to gear up everybody before we could hit the slopes.  Many trails were not groomed or only half groomed. It was quite interesting to see mounds and piles of snow all along half the trails that were a few feet in height.  We had to warn the boys to stay away from the deep powder or going in between trees, as they could easily get stuck in the deep snow and suffocate if they got buried. It was very cold, with the sun peeping out for only a short while in the morning before hiding behind the gray clouds the rest of the day.  

We all skied together on Broadway for several runs, practicing the new techniques to do parallel turns. It was a bit tough, though, as the trail was lumpy and bumpy with clumps of soft snow everywhere. West Bowl trails were not groomed yet, so we all headed over to Grand View Express for a run on Sugar-n-Spice.  Little J and I were first off the lift. I tried to practice rolling my skis on the edges, and unfortunately my left ski got caught on all the lumps of snow. Before my brain registered what had happened, my body pitched forward, my left ski popped off, and I fell flat onto my chest. Luckily I kept my head up and avoided a face plant, but that was still quite a jarring, and embarrassing, fall. Hah.  Little J kept right on skiing down, and Hubby and the older J's soon passed us. It started snowing while we skied. Little J still needed me to hold him to ski down the first two steeper sections, but at the last steep section right after Corkscrew, he told me he can do it, and he did!  He skied down just fine.  As usual, the long Sugar-n-Spice run wiped him out, and we headed to the tables inside Solstice Eatery. 

Little J ate nuts, carrots, and still not satisfied, complained that he's very hungry and wants to eat pizza. I then realized that I had forgotten my wallet inside the car. I had no cash, no credit cards... no money to satisfy Little J's monstrous appetite. When I tried to explain that I didn't have money to buy him pizza, Little J started whining loudly, "But I'm huuuungry, Mama!! I want piiiiizzaaaa. I'm huuuungry." Thank goodness a few minutes later Hubby and the older J's showed up, and materialized the pizza, haha. Hubby and the older J's had skied down Escape, but there was so much snow and lumps and clumps that they were all wiped out. Hubby had fallen a couple times, and evidently Middle J handled all the bumps the best. We ordered a summer solstice salad w/shrimp and enjoyed it with instant noodles. Little J started whimpering, saying he's tired, and wanted me to hold him. He got fussier and fussier. After we finished eating, it was windy, overcast, and snowing more heavily. With the uninviting weather and all the boys being wiped out, from little to big, none of them wanted to ski more. Little J was glued to me so I couldn't ski either. We also didn't want the weather to take a turn for the worse and get stuck on the road for a long time.  So, we sent all the boys to the restroom, and I took Little J as well, then packed up all our gear. 

Little J complained and whined walking all the way back to the car. I stripped off his jacket, gloves, goggles, helmet, ski mask, boots, and sat him in the car seat snuggled under his precious blanket. Oldest J, being very clumsy, dropped one of his gloves into the muddy puddle next to the car. He fished it out, and it was dripping wet with muddy water :/ When we were almost done packing and ready to go, Little J complained that he needed to go poop. SIGH.... It was cold and still snowing, so I had to put back most of his gear. He refused to walk, so I had to carry him all the way back down the stairs to the ski lodge's restroom and back up. He insisted that I sit next to him, so I squeezed myself between the car seat and booster seat in the back, sitting at an angle the entire way to the Aston Lakeland Village Resort. Part way there, all the boys fell asleep, and I dozed off a bit as well. 

I was rudely jerked awake by our car hitting the car in front of us. What in the world?? The driver in front of us got out to check his rear bumper, and Hubby got out of the car to check as well. Luckily, there was only a small scratch on the other car's bumper, and the guy waved it off saying it's OK. Hubby got back in the car, and I asked him what happened. He replied, "I fell asleep." He had evidently been awake enough to brake and stop, but dozed off and his foot let up on the brake so the car rolled forward, hitting the other car :/

We parked at the Aston Lakeland Village Resort. Oldest J and Little J continued sleeping, but Middle J woke up and wanted to go with me to the Lobby to go pee. Since the E family didn't join us this time, we had booked a smaller 1 BR suite with a loft in the main lodge building. I took Middle J to the suite first, then went back outside to the car. Hubby had just gotten out of the car and was holding Little J, who was looking for Mama. I took a few steps toward them when Little J suddenly leaned over and vomit. Some of the vomit landed on his blanket and ski pants, and most of it covered the pavement. He started crying and saying he didn't feel well. Oldest J was still sleeping in the car, so I took Little J to our suite while Hubby went back to the car. After taking off his ski pants, I tucked Little J into bed and wrapped him up in the blanket. The suite was freezing with temperature below 50 F. I turned on all the heaters and fireplace and cranked them up full blast. Hubby soon brought Oldest J and some luggage in, then went back out to re-park the car in the garage so he could take the rest of the luggage up the elevator in a luggage cart. Hubby showered the older boys while I snuggled with Little J to keep him warm. After showering Little J, he said he felt much better and started playing with the older boys.

With Little J's vomit-covered stuff and Oldest J's mud-soaked glove, looked like I had to do laundry. So I gathered all the dirty stuff, bought detergent at the front desk, and chucked all the stuff in a washer at the laundry room. When I got back to our suite, Little J had just finished pooping again. No diarrhea, so that was good news (of course we parents have to talk about our kids' poop, haha). We relaxed, ate fruit and snacks, played board games, and watched TV. Little J had no interest in the cartoons, but he and his brothers practically jumped up and down with excitement when we landed on a channel showing dirt bike races.... boys :/

Concerned that he needed more sleep due to not feeling well, around 4:30pm, I tried to hold Little J and walk him around for him to sleep some more. After 15 minutes, I felt him go limp, so I carefully put him down in the bed, and lay down next to him. He suddenly popped open his eyes and said clearly, "Mama, you forgot to take off your glasses." "What?? Aren't you sleeping?!?"  He responded with a smirk and snickering, "I tricked you, Mama!" SIGH... seriously?!? Guess he had fully recovered!

While Little J went off to play cars with the other boys, I went back to the laundry room to put the clothes in the dryer. None of the boys wanted to go out to eat,  possibly due to the fiasco on the last ski trip walking from restaurant to restaurant trying to find a place that could serve dinner in less than an hour and a half, hahaha. They wanted to eat hot dogs. Hubby offered to go to Safeway, and I texted him a list to buy hot dogs or sausages, buns, chicken noodle soup, sandwiches, a bag of chips or crackers, some easy-to-eat veggies, and dessert. He finally materialized over an hour later with two full grocery bags that cost $100, with four large sandwiches, 3 bags of chips, salsa, two kinds of soups, a pack of 4 bratwurst sausages, a loaf of whole grain multi-seed bread, a bag of apples, a bunch of bananas, a half gallon of pineapple-banana juice, a box of cherry tomatoes, a bag of baby carrots, and six pieces of mochi ice cream. "Where are the hot dog buns?" Oldest J asked. "I don't know. There's a loaf of bread." Hubby responded. "How do I eat that with the sausage?" Hubby cut a couple slices of bread and stuck the sausage in between. "But I don't like seeeds...." Middle J whined. "Then don't eat with the bread. Man, I buy food for you guys and you complain..." Hubby huffed. Heh :P It was a lot of food. Luckily we did finish most of the stuff that would not have been fun to pack back.

After finishing dinner, I went to pick up the laundry. Unfortunately, the gloves were still sopping wet inside, and it didn't seem worthwhile to stick 2 items in the dryer. I turned the gloves inside out, put them right in front of the heater in the living room, and cranked up the temperature. I loaded the dishes in the dishwasher and packed up as much as we could, leaving out only the clothes and items needed for the next day. The boys spent half an hour looking for all their toys before they finally found all of them.

I calculated what time we would need to wake up to start skiing at 9am, half an hour to drive there, half an hour to eat breakfast, half an hour to get ready and load up everything in the morning. So I concluded we needed to wake up at 7am and leave by 8:30am. We sent all the kids to bed by 10pm, so much earlier when they're not romping around with the E's :P 

Sunday

It was 6:45am when I opened my eyes. Little J and Middle J soon woke up afterwards, followed by Hubby and Oldest J. We got the boys dressed and ready to go, and I asked Hubby to grab a luggage cart to haul stuff down to the car. Unfortunately, after going to Safeway the night before, Hubby couldn't find any spaces in the garage and had to park outside, so we all lugged as much stuff as we could down to the car outside, which was covered in a layer of snow with icicles hanging all around the bottom edges of the car. Hubby had to scrape all the windshields while I took the boys to eat the complimentary breakfast buffet. All the boys made a beeline for the donuts and muffins while I toasted a waffle. We sat down to eat, and all of a sudden Oldest J asked, "Mama, don't we need half an hour to prepare after we get to the ski resort?" Yikes!! He was right. I had somehow miscalculated and forgot about needing time to put all our ski gear on after getting to the resort. We should be leaving the lodging by 8:00am, and it was already 8:04am by then. We hurriedly finished eating breakfast, and I called Hubby to let him know that we'll take the rest of the stuff down from our suite while he grabbed breakfast. By then Hubby had reparked the car in the garage, and had already taken a luggage cart to carry our remaining stuff. The boys and I pushed the luggage cart to take down to the garage while Hubby grabbed some food. 

I drove to Sierra while Hubby ate breakfast. Chain control started soon after turning off Pioneer Trail to Lake Tahoe Blvd, where traffic slowed down considerably. It took additional time to get to Sierra, arriving at 9:20am. We again parked in the unloading/loading zone to unload the boys and gear, and Hubby ended up having to repark the car all the way down in Lot E. It was a long uphill trudge back to the ski area. It was 9:45am by the time we got on Easy Rider Express lift. 

The weather was gorgeous, sunny and not that cold. The snow was a dream to ski on, ultra soft and fluffy. Unfortunately, many people had the same idea of skiing that Sunday. The kids were out in full force, and the lines were very long. We did one run on Broadway, then Little J wanted to go on Sugar-n-Spice. We stood in the Grand View Express line for half an hour, all the time with Little J whining and fussing that he was too tired. I ended up having to hold him, skis and all, for most of the time in line. Man, my shoulder and arms are gettin' too old for this, hahaha. 

When we got to the top, Little J skied down at a nice brisk pace, and again didn't need me to hold him for the last steep section. The 2.5 mile long run wiped him out as usual, so we skied straight to the eatery afterwards. It was only 11:00am so we had no problem finding an empty table inside. Little J complained he was hungry already, so I ordered pizza for him, and I ate one of the sandwiches Hubby had purchased from Safeway. 

By the time we finished eating, there was still no sign of Hubby or the older boys, and Little J wanted to ski again. He didn't want to ski Sugar-n-Spice again, but he was fine with Broadway. Most people were eating lunch at that time, so there were no lines at all :D We ended up skiing many many runs on Broadway. On the right side of Broadway, there were some small smooth little bumps, and Little J enthusiastically kept skiing down those bumps. I think it won't take long before he's on the ramps just like the older boys, hah.

On the Easy Rider Express lift, we rode up with a dad and his 4-year old boy. The dad asked how long Little J had been skiing, and I answered that this was his second season. The dad said that's the same for his son as well, and that his son had been enrolled in group lessons the entire time but didn't seem to make much progress skiing, so the dad decided to take his son up skiing himself. I explained that Little J hadn't taken any lessons. Little J started skiing before 3. The minimum age for group lessons was 3, and I didn't want to pay for private lessons. I figured I could take him skiing first and see how he does, and he did just fine. The dad replied that he should have done that, and that he already wasted thousands of dollars on lessons. By then it was time to get off the chair lift, so I lifted Little J off the chair using his backpack's handle, set him down on the snow, and let him ski down on his own. The dad was surprised that Little J could ski off from the chair lift on his own. The dad had to hold his son's backpack handle all the way off the chair lift and down. I saw them making their way down Broadway. It looked like the son couldn't ski very well and fell quite often. I felt quite happy that Little J was skiing quite well in comparison even without lessons, and rejoiced that we saved ourselves a ton of money in the process. There was a sense of vindication that all of the initial suffering hauling Little J up and down the slopes, dealing with his fussiness, and snow plowing excruciatingly slowly and painfully behind him all day long, was worth it, haha :P

Hubby finally texted to say that he's eating lunch with the older J's and that we need to leave right afterwards. Little J and I were already in line for another run, so we skied down Broadway one more time. Hubby had texted again that he's walking out to get the car and that the boys were still eating inside. Little J and I went back inside the eatery and saw the boys happily munching on edamame and carrots. They were very excited about the terrific snow condition. They had taken Nob Hill lift up and skied over to West Bowl via Escape and Beaver, did a run on Upper Powderhorn to Bashful and Lower Bashful, then went back up for a run down Escape to Broadway. Lines were super long at West Bowl, too, and evidently Middle J had whined and fussed while standing in line. Well, more like slipping and sliding in line because he was too tired to keep himself from sliding. Hubby later told me that Middle J's turning and handling of the clumpy fluffy snow was quite good, better than the two of them. I took Little J to change his diaper, and by the time we got back to the table, Hubby was already back and strapping up the skis. We packed everything up and left around 1:45pm. 

There was little traffic, and no more chain control in effect. We made it home in 4 hours with a restroom break in the middle. We were all quite disappointed that we couldn't ski some more on that fabulous snow. Too bad we had to leave early :P The boys exclaimed that the snow was soooo awesome! They wanted to go again the next weekend. I told them that unfortunately Daddy would be in Singapore and then Taiwan that weekend. Oldest J said, "That's OK! Me and Middle J can ski by ourselves." Ha ha ha. I told them I am willing to make the effort to do many things with the 3 boys by myself, but that I'll have to draw the line at driving up and down 8 hours on my own and handling all 3 boys and their gear by myself on the slopes. "Awwwwwww...."

Pictures & Videos

Following are pictures and videos of our ski trip.  

I'm seriously considering getting a GoPro. Having to hold a camera steady while skiing down steeper slopes, while handling Little J, or while it's snowing, is a bit challenging. Hubby also doesn't feel comfortable holding a camera to record while skiing, so we don't have any videos of the older J's. A hands-free GoPro seems like a good option.