Skiing at Sierra-at-Tahoe

2018-03-31


No snow for a few weeks already, and Easter weekend weather forecast was mid-50's.  That's quite warm weather for skiing, but with a 7-feet snow base, we figured the snow conditions should still be good for skiing.  This time the E's family were able to join us for the entire weekend. EN Daddy complained that he was tired of staying at Aston Lakeland Village Resort, so we booked rooms at Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel instead.  Hmm... I wonder if it's because of the sumptious breakfast buffet at Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, or the walking proximity to Harvey's Seafood Buffet... probably both :D

Friday

Last ski trip wore out my arms and back carrying a floppy 4-year old with skis and gear in the lift line for close to half an hour. This time, I came up with the bright idea of carrying a very compact and lightweight folding stool (Amazing Pocket Chair).  I prepped Little J at home, telling him that if we have to stand a long time in line, he can sit on this really cool stool to rest. He had lots of fun sitting on that stool and sliding around the kitchen (on my hardwood floors, ouch). Filled with hope that my arms and back would come back intact this time, I stuffed that little stool into my backpack  and crossed my fingers :D Hubby commented that the stool is extra weight, but I'd much rather carry the stool in my backpack all day than cradle Little J in my arms with all his ski gear for half an hour.

Little J took his packing very seriously. He made sure to stuff his little backpack with fruit, snacks, hand warmers, and of course, plenty of cars. The older J's packed their hydration packs, and I gave them each jumbo size Ziploc bags with their packing list items written on the bags for stuffing in the luggage later. Middle J finished packing pretty quickly. Oldest J required constant reminders, as usual. We were all done packing, except for Hubby. It was 8:30pm already, so I decided to go ahead and load all the luggage, backpacks, ski boots, food, and drinks into the car, leaving Hubby to finish packing his stuff and loading the skis later. Then we herded the boys off to brush, shower, and sleep. Little J didn't sleep until 10:30pm. I got up to wrap up stuff, but Hubby was snoring away. He had left his bag and backpack out in the hallway. I took his bag to the car to stuff in the luggage, and saw that he hadn't loaded any of the skis.  Geez. I figured I'd just wake him up earlier to load the skis, because I still had to finish washing dishes and securing stuff in the house. By the time I flopped into bed, it was 12:30am.

Saturday

Way too soon my phone was vibrating on the nightstand. 4:30am. I woke Hubby up and reminded him he hadn't loaded the skis yet. He popped out of bed, lamenting that he fell asleep last night and couldn't wake up, then went to load the skis. We got all the boys up and dressed, leaving the house by 5:00am. Unfortunately, part way down Almaden Expressway, Hubby realized he had forgotten his phone, so we turned the car around to go back and get it. I was too tired and slept most of the way up to Tahoe.

Hubby must have been driving very fast, because we arrived at Sierra at 8:15am and scored a close parking spot. We started unloading and gearing up, and then, OMG!! All the boys' helmets were still hanging on their bikes at home in the garage :/ It was good we arrived early. I took Little J to the store at Sierra while Hubby took the older boys to the restroom. The store was having a 30% off sale for all helmets. Unfortunately, there was no XS size for Little J, so the salesperson recommended checking out the rentals. I messaged Hubby about the helmets, and then went over to the rental shop. They had plenty of XS size helmets that fit Little J. The rental rate was $12 per helmet per day. Hubby messaged me that none of the helmets in the store fit the older J's, so we paid $36 to rent helmets for all the boys.

Finally, we could hit the slopes. It was partly cloudy with a nice cool temperature, not cold at all.  The snow was hard packed and icy, but luckily it softened up when the sun peeked out to warm up the temperature. Little J is skiing quite fast now.  After a while, the lines got rather long, and Little J started fussing and wanting me to hold him.  This time, I'm prepared! I whipped out the folding stool from my backpack, and he happily sat on it, thinking it's so cool. He's a happy camper = Mama's a happy camper :D

The E's arrived a little before 9am, and the older J's met up with the E's.  I ended up skiing on Broadway with Little J and Little E.  After a few runs, Little E wanted hot cocoa.  Little J said to her, "No, you need to exercise more!"  LOL.  I agreed.  It was warming up, and pretty soon, Little J took off his mittens and skied down with both hands in his jacket pockets, looking cool as a cucumber. 

By 10:30am Little J and Little E were both tired, so went back to the table where we saw E's Daddy. Little J and Little E played in the snow for a while, then came over to munch on nuts and edamame.  Hubby and the other boys came in, and we ordered an early lunch. After eating, I was hoping to swap with Hubby and ski with the older J's, but Little J had a fit and wailed and cried. So, I ended up skiing Broadway again with Little J and Little E. After only 2 runs, Little E wanted to take a break, but I told her we'll wait until Little J needs to take a break. E's Daddy joined us on a couple runs, and then disappeared.  I asked Little E where her dad went, and she replied, "He went to go sleep." I said, "Are you kidding me??"  We continued skiing many runs on Broadway before Little J finally had to take a break.

Hubby texted that Middle J was too tired and that he'd gone back to the tables. We went back to the tables and saw Middle J just going back out to ski again. I
told Hubby I'll swap and ski with Middle J, but Little J had another fit.  Finally Little J wanted to ski again, and Little E wanted to ski, so we skied together. with Middle J. This time, Middle J suggested we go down the ramp side instead of Broadway, and managed to convince Little E to go with him. So off they went down the ramp side, but they only went on the bottom easiest ramp, twice.  After a few more Broadway runs, we went on the Nob Hill chair lift.  Little E couldn't get on the lift in time, and the operator had to slow down the lift for her. At the top, when getting off the lift, I lifted Little J off the lift and let him go down first, but I waited too long and ended up jumping off the chair too late. The chair swung around and hit me, but I managed to keep balance and ski off, though I got a small bruise from it.

We went down Spur, Upper  Main, then over to Corkscrew and back down Broadway. Middle J  skied over to Nob Hill lift again, and Little E skied over there also but had fallen down. I finally managed to haul Little E back up. Middle J had forgotten his hydration pack and was thirsty, so he went back to the tables to get it.  Little J was too tired and didn't want to go up Nob Hill again, so I ended up having to tow Little J using the leashes to get back to the tables. Middle J and everyone else was tired by this time also, so I started packing up stuff.

Hubby came back with the boys. Evidently, when he skied earlier with Middle J, Middle J had fallen at the top of Escape, and Hubby also fell, pulling his leg muscles.  Oldest J somehow lost his season pass, SIGH, so Hubby had to take him over to the office to get a new one. Luckily there was no charge this time.  Then I realized that we needed to rent the helmets for another day, so went to the rental office to pay for another day's rental.

After we packed up everything and piled into the car, we drove to Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, and got there around 4:15pm. There was a long slow line of cars to drive up to hotel lobby.  After a long wait, we finally got fed up. I took the boys with me to check into the room first while Hubby sat in the long line of cars, and saw E's Mama and Daddy checking in as well. After checking in, we followed the E's over to our hotel rooms, and somehow along the way lost Oldest J and Middle J.  I had to leave Little J with the E's family, and went looking for the older J's.  I finally found Oldest J wandering around in the lobby, with no Middle J in sight.  I asked Oldest J where Middle J was, and he shrugged, saying "I don't know."  SIGH. Finally after wandering around a bit, it dawned on me that perhaps I ought to check with Hubby, and sure enough, Middle J was sitting in the car with Hubby. 

I took both of the J's back to the hotel room. Little J ended up not napping at all, and Hubby finally joined us in the hotel room after leaving his car for valet parking. Evidently there was no longer any self parking available. E's Daddy wanted to go eat buffet, and Oldest J wanted anything except buffet. Everyone took a vote, and it was an 8 to 1 favoring Japanese restaurant over buffet.  We then got all the boys showered, and realized that Oldest J forgot to pack long pants and a second pair of ski socks, SIGH, so he ended up wearing just his thermal pants. We went downstairs to the lobby, and there was another long wait for the valet to get our car.

Finally, we got our car and drove to Off the Hook restaurant to eat dinner. Little J was extremely fussy, so I had to hold him and walk him around the restaurant, inside, outside.  Dinner was very good, but Little J was fussy again towards the end. We drove back to the hotel and valet parked again. The E's family went to the grocery store to buy food, and came to our room with ice cream and fruits. We finally went to bed around 9:30-10:00pm.  Little J woke up all night long, having fits and tantrums because of stuffy nose and not being able to breathe.  I ended up holding him upright most of the night, propped up against a stack of pillows.

Sunday

Sunday morning, I didn't wake up until 6:56am.  I hadn't heard my cell phone vibrating the alarm at all, I was so dead. We packed up everything by 7:30am, then went to eat the complimentary breakfast buffet, which was very good.  We had to wait for the luggage cart to bring our luggage down, then had to wait for valet to get our car.  SIGH.

We didn't get to Sierra until 9:10am. It was already very sunny. Hubby didn't want to ski and injure his leg more.  So, Oldest J and Middle J went off on their own together. I took Little J on Broadway while Hubby sat at the table. Little J was tired today, going pretty slowly, and the snow was kinda icy. After a few runs, we saw Little E waiting at the bottom of Broadway. She wanted to ski with us. I trained Little J to get on and off the list all by himself, yay!! To get off the lift, Little J had to jump, but he did it just fine. Little J fell two times going down Broadway.  Little E asked to go up Nob Hill again, but Little J was too tired to go.  I told Little E to go with her mom, and practice her turning technique. 

Finally Little J was too tired to ski more, and we went back to the table. Little J was hungry and thirsty. Hubby let him play puzzles on his smartphone, and I snuck off by myself to see if I could find the older J's. I went to Sugar-n-Spice and bumped into E's Daddy by himself at the top.  We skied down together initially, but eventually I skied ahead to look for the boys. I waited at the crossover to Beaver, but no sign of the boys. Then I headed back down Broadway and back to Grand View Express again, but still didn't see the boys.  After several more runs, I went back to the tables.

Evidently, Middle J was skiing down Upper Powderhorn, and a very fast snowboarder crashed into him from behind, knocking Middle J over. His his skis popped off, and he lost his poles. The snowboarder kept going, and Middle J was very upset that the snowboarder didn't even bother to stop and check on him or help him. Two other snowboarders helped to get his skis, and two skiers helped get his poles and got him back up.  Luckily, he didn't sustain any injury.

In the meantime, E's Mama finally met up with the older boys and took Little E down Beaver and even Escape, and Little E didn't fall!  What awesome improvement! 

The older boys had so much fun skiing together. Oldest J was really happy and proclaimed the day to be an epic day.  

Pictures & Videos

Following are pictures and videos of our ski trip, some of which I took and some are from E's Mama.