Lake Tahoe May 1, 2008
Posted by lee in Passion: Sports.Tags: California Lodge, California Roundabout, Double Black Diamond, Green Diamond, Gunbarrel, Heavenly, Lake Tahoe, Ski, Skiing, Vacation, World Cup
add a comment
After reading Robert’s blog, he gave me the idea to write about my winter vacation at Lake Tahoe.
We first arrived at Lake Tahoe in January 3 even though we didn’t really start skiing until 3 days after our arrival. It was pretty exciting for my sisters and me because it was our first time skiing since we lived our whole life in the tropical area. In our first day, we all took skiing lessons except for my sister who took snowboarding lessons. It was pretty hard to learn because there was a blizzard for 3 days straight so some places you had to make your own trail and you couldn’t really see well.
For two days, we only practiced in a green diamond course which by the third it was becoming way too easy because I had already skied down from there at least 100 times.
I tried to convince my parents that I wanted to go down the double black diamond coarse Gunbarrel. They wouldn’t let me get on it because according to them, I was still a beginner, which really frustrated me. I kept on asking them until they got tired of it so they let me. I was so happy that I was running with my skis on. I was the only one in line so I didn’t have to wait. When I got on the lift, I noticed that the lift went a lot faster than the one of the green diamond. my heart was pounding so fast that I thought that I was going to get a heart attack.
Up until then, I thought that I was going to make through the Gunbarrel only falling about 5-10 times. However, when I looked down from the lift, I changed my mind. It didn’t look so steep when you saw it from below. No wonder it was classified as a double black diamond. When I got to the top, I decided to find another way down. The other route was called the California Roundabout, which in small letters it said, “Not for beginners”. At first I was like sure no problem, I’m not a beginner anymore and anyways, it’s a roundabout route.
Also, I was amazed that there were a bunch of lifts on top. I never thought that there would be many more. As I went around looking at all the rides, I lost track of time since I had to be down by noon for lunch. I guess around 1:30 pm, I made my way down the California Roundabout. At first it was very easy because it wasn’t very steep. Soon, you had to make a lot of sharp turns in steep trails that were becoming very challenging because if you turned a little bit too late, you would be out of the Heavenly skiing boundary and I would get lost. I clenched my teeth and opened my eyes as much as I could. There was no making mistakes here. After about one and a half hour at the roundabout, I got to the last part of the trail. It’s called the World Cup, which is a trail that goes straight down but with no bumps. I never had any experience with those kinds of trails so I just tried going from side to side which then later became impossible for me because a whole bunch of maniac snowboarders came down at full speed and one almost crashed into me.
Since going straight down for a skier is nearly impossible, I just tried to make short turns from side to side like the pros do. I soon lost control, which was scary, and I fell into one side. I had a “yard sale” where all my skis and poles fell off and I had to go look for them.
It was snowing so I had a really hard time putting was skis back on since the snow kept on getting underneath my shoes so I started considering in walking all the way down since there wasn’t a lot left to the bottom.
Just then, a couple stopped next to me noticing that I was having a hard time putting my skis back on. The guy took his skis off and helped me put mine back on. After around five minutes, I finally had it back on and headed for the bottom of the mountain.
When I got down to the bottom, I started looking for my family. I found them outside of the restaurant/lodge and they all looked worried. When I got to them, I asked for the time. They told me that it was 3:30 and I was also surprised. I never thought that I took that long coming down. I had gone up at 11:30 so I had been gone for about four hours.
It was a really good experience going through the roundabout but I would enjoy it better if I went with another person.
-Lee
