Well, we were supposed to leave Truckee on a Sunday and finally were able to head out Wednesday morning. Westbound I-80 had been closed starting on Christmas Day and wasn’t reopened until late on the 28th. So, we left early Wednesday morning to beat the majority of the traffic. A normal 3 1/2 trip, took us about 7 1/2. Not too bad considering the storms impact. South lake Tahoe was still struggling with a number of people still without power, empty gas stations and dwindling food supplies.
I-80 Reopened 
The Eastbound Chain Control
We were spending New Year’s at Will’s sister in the San Francisco area. We were able to get Alyssa and Will’s mom dropped off for their flights and spend more family time making tamales and hanging out.
We spent one day hanging out in the city and made it an Atlas Obscura day. If you haven’t heard of this website, give it a look. It has some different oddities or things that are off the beaten path for you to explore. So, it was nice to get to see some different things and even some that the locals had never done as well. You might even find some interesting things in your hometown that are new to you as well. We started out at a small park with a couple of metal slides. Cardboard was available to aid you in creating a more slippery ride. Unfortunately, my “hips don’t lie” and they were a little too wide for these slides hampering my sliding ability. Everyone else was able to pick-up some speed after warming up the slide a little.
Then, it was off to a short hike in the Glen Canyon Park. There were a number of others out enjoying the sunny weather that day as well. And the views from the base of the nearby Sutro Tower were beautiful.
Did you know they have bison in Golden Gate Park? There’s been a small herd there since the late 1800’s. So, we went to say hello.
We went on to find the labyrinth on the Land’s End Trail. We never did find it as we didn’t do the whole trail, but the views were great. I took a detour on the return trip to the car. This is what happens when I’m left to my own devices and miss the turn. Had to back track and get a lecture from Will about getting lost. Oh, well.
Found this on my detour
It was time to say goodbye to family and get back on the road. Our next skiing destination was Dodge Ridge Ski Resort in Pinecrest, CA. Dodge Ridge was built in 1950 and was family owned until last year when it was sold to an investment group. There isn’t any lodging at the resort, but they have a nice cafeteria area and day lodge at the base. If you haven’t heard of Dodge Ridge, well neither had we until they became members of the Powder Alliance. The mountain seems to get really packed during the weekends and holidays, but we skied during the week and really never had to wait in line. They have some nice runs and have a little something for everyone from beginner to expert. Dodge Ridge is located on the east side of the Sierra Nevada range and gets a much wetter snow than what we’re used to. So, after trying to navigate one ungroomed run, we stuck to the groomers after that. The main drawback I see for this resort is there are no high-speed lifts and you spend quite a lot of time on the chair lift.
We made it down to the town of Twain Harte for dinner one night at the Rock. The restaurant has implemented the system of ordering yourself. You pick up a menu scan the QR code at your table and place the order via your phone. It’s made it easier for the restaurant to deal with their staffing shortage and limits the physical contact between wait staff and the customer. As with anything new, there are aspects I like, not waiting for a check. But I did miss the personal interaction as it more isolating even though, we were greeted when entering the restaurant. I guess I’ll get used to it. Twain Harte is a cute town, especially with their Christmas lights decorating the place. There are many campgrounds in the area, so, it looks like we may have to come back in the summer one of these days.
We made it back over the Sierras and passed through the area where the electric company was still trying to fix the lines from the snow storm. Some people still had no power 10 days after the storm. We were bound for round 2 of trying to ski Park City. We spent a night in Battle Mountain, NV and had a nice dinner at the Hide-A-Way Steakhouse. Stayed at the Big Chief Motel. The room was very clean and it looks like they have done some room renovations in the past few years.
Found some beautiful views while driving to Park City.
This time the skiing conditions were much improved from our earlier visit. Park City is the biggest ski resort in the U.S., (that is, if you don’t count the private skiing area in addition to the public area at Big Sky) at 7,300 acres. Anyway, guess we’ll let them fight over that title and just say, it’s huge. Best advice, if you start on the Canyons side, ski the Canyons. It you start on the Park City side, ski that side. Otherwise, I think you will find yourself just transversing the mountain and not enjoying the skiing.
We skied the Canyons and found some nice runs our first day that we enjoyed. That afternoon, while enjoying our therapeutic soak in the hot tub others had said that they really enjoyed the runs off the Dreamcatcher lift. So, Will and I made a plan to make it over there first thing the next morning. Our day did not start off well. We arrived to find the gondola down and so, we walked a little further to take the chairlift up. It’s good to have options. Well, sure enough that lift went down while we were in line for quite some time. Finally, got that running again and we finally got up on the mountain. We were skiing over toward the Tombstone lift area and were informed that lift was down. We wanted the Timerline anyway and I knew it would be more crowded, but we didn’t expect the sheer volume of people that were virtually trapped. This area has 3 lifts and no way to ski out of it without the Tombstone lift. The other two lifts just transfer you to another area on the mountain. #Epicfail Park City, why they kept letting more and more people enter this bottle neck, I don’t know. After probably more than an hour, we finally got out of that and really enjoyed the rest of the day skiing.
All good things must come to an end; we started our trek home the next morning.
