Christmas vacation 2022

Over christmas break I didn't do too much over the first two weeks, I went skiing one day in snow valley and that was the highlight of the beginning. The last week of break I drove to Lake Tahoe with my family to ski. With our current atmospheric river the snow had dumped in the sierras and Lake Tahoe was no different. Typically the drive takes 7 to 8 hours with stops for food and gas. Our drive took 11 hours as we ran into two road closures and icy roads.

Once we arrived the snow was unlike anything we had seen before and we have been going up at this time for the past 5 years, massive snow drifts were everywhere. just to show how much snow had dumped we took a photo in front of one of the hotel entrances.

I took this photo on 1/1/23 when we first arrived at the hotel, it was taken at the Ridge Tahoe in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada

This photo lets you gauge how much snow there actually was. I am 6 feet tall and the snow drifts are taller than me! This is where that photo was taken.

The next day we got right to skiing, there are 15 different ski resorts in Lake Tahoe but the one my family and I typically ski at is Heavenly. Heavenly has 28 chairlifts and 97 trails and boasts terrain that overlaps though both the states of Nevada and California. To compare, the biggest Ski resort in Southern California, Big Bear mountain resort has 12 lifts and 35 trails.

I have been skiing for 15 years and this trip I decided to push myself, at the beginning of the trip I told myself by the end of the trip I would ski Gunbarrel, a double black diamond run that runs below the initial chairlift up the mountain on the California side.

The lift lines the first few days were awful and this picture makes the mountain feel more like Disneyland than a ski resort.

This photo was taken 1/6/23 on the Nevada side of Heavenly. I took this photo to show the sheer amount of people at the lift.

Overall the skiing was phenomenal and the fresh powder and perfect 30-35 degree weather. This weather made up for the lift closures and long lines. I felt myself improving my skiing constantly as I was able to ski moguls with my wide powder skis. On the last day of the trip I toughened up and decided to hit Gunbarrel. This run is a 3,000 foot long mogul studded monster with a 31 degree pitch that boasts 1,600 vertical feet of descent.

This photo was taken 1/6/23 halfway down gunbarrel, I was waiting for my brother to make it down so I pulled out my phone and took a photo of the view

This map shows Heavenly and all of the runs and lifts, on the left side is gunbarrel where i took the photo. Overall this was an amazing trip and I am so excited to go again next year.