My Face is Burning!

My face is burning.  It started last night, in the Jeep on the way home.  One by one, it happened to the other passengers too.  About every hour, someone would cry out "My face is burning!"

Actually, it all started before last night.  Without going too far back, this particular story started just a few days after the recent cascade of epic disasters hit Japan.  When I heard the news of potential radiation danger in Tokyo, I called my friend Ellie-ko, who I met shortly after she migrated here from Japan 15 years ago, but who I haven't seen in two or three years outside of Facebook.  If you have kids you know how quickly these years can go by without seeing your friends.  It's not that you lose your friends when you have kids, it's that you get a lot more friends.  First, there are the pre-school friends, then the soccer friends, the baseball friends, then the school friends, and so on.  And you still only have 365 24-hour days to hang out with these friends.

With the news that Ellie-ko's family was okay, the subject matter quickly turned to catch-up, which then with remarkable speed turned into a plan to go snowboarding at Sugarbowl.  Sugarbowl is the first ski resort you hit when you drive the 80 East toward Reno from San Francisco.  Its convenient location makes it easy to get there, snowboard, and come home on the same day.

Which is precisely what we did.

When we planned this day trip, we were unaware that a string of winter storms would dump epic snow there just before our arrival.

Can you tell there is a house under here?  Yes, a whole house.

I recruited my friend Cindy, a telemark skier who needed a day off from managing a dynamic household that includes three kids.  We were accompanied by Bill, a dad and skier who, when chatting with Ellie-ko at their kids' curbside drop-off the day before, asked if he might come along too.

Our foursome was complete, and the Jeep was loaded with gear by 7 a.m. behind the local Peet's Coffee & Tea.  The sun just rising--which, by the way, it does here 10 minutes after it does there, at Sugarbowl--a medium half-caf and petite vanilla bean scone in hand, I hit the gas and we hit the highway.

We were among the first customers to arrive at Ikeda's in Auburn.  This is a popular half-way point where travelers load up on road food, mountain snacks, and fresh baked pie.  Apparently the chicken pot pies are to die for.  Ikeda is located a few doors up the street from Lou La Bonte's.  Lou La Bonte's has always fascinated me from the freeway.  It's the kind of dark, windowless restaurant that was popular in the 1940s.  I imagine very senior citizens pulling their oxygen machines along with them on the way to their dinner tables as they talk through their cigarettes.

This fellow had already put 30 hours into clearing this private driveway.

Just before Donner Pass, the slopes, sun kissed, white, and mostly empty, came into view.  Did I mention it was already 50 degrees?  We parked, stepped out of the car, and removed layers of clothing.  This was spring skiing, right on time.  And if you've ever boarded or skied on peanut butter, you know exactly what it was like.  I heard someone refer to it as "trying to board on thick cake batter."  The waxing hut was busy all day.

We made our way to the top of Mt. Lincoln.  I like to traverse almost all the way over to the west, past Silver Belt and across The '58 to just before The Palisades.  These are a series of tall butte-like cliffs, which, to descend safely, require a measurably higher level of skill than I have right now.  There is a lot of terrain along this north face to explore--mostly trees, chutes, and cliffs.  After a few runs here, we slogged our way over to Mt. Disney, met up with our friend Liz who moved from San Francisco to Truckee a while back, and carved our way through very forgiving snow on the wide groomers.

One of the highlights of Sugarbowl is the Angel Hair Pasta dish that you can get at the Nob Hill Cafe. We met up with college friends Mike and Margot and ate this lazy meal on the deck in the sun before we geared up for the afternoon.  More Disney, more Mt. Lincoln, and one by one we dispersed across the mountains, finding our own favorite spots.  I had lots of slope to myself after 3:00.

The plan was to meet at the bar at 4:00, which is exactly what happened.  Equipped with Bloody Marys, beer, and wine we sat outside in sunshine and t-shirts and recounted the day.  Helmets and goggles off, our faces exposed, we felt the burn in spite of two applications of sunscreen.  The big ball of gas was low in the sky when we gathered our gear and pointed the Jeep down the mountain.  We stopped in Auburn, again, for an al fresco dinner, and filled our bellies with Tio Pepe's Mexican food and margaritas.

My face is still burning.   I need to dig up that little jar of Darphin Purifying Baum that I got on Cape Cod a while back for sunburn.  It's predicted to reach 80 degrees here today, and the sun coming through the southwest facing window is approaching my computer screen.  I can feel the salty Pacific breeze on my arms.  The air smells warm.  It was a good day on a snowy mountain with old friends and new.