Snain Snow Globe? Squaw Valley Skiing: Day Two

Waking on January 1, 2010 was exciting. It was snowing! Big chucks of snowflake love! I was staying with friends at a rental home in Homewood (just 24 minutes from Squaw Valley USA). Thoughts of a feasible epic day lay ahead. However, after getting on the road at 9:30AM and arriving at the ski resort, the lovely white majestic flakes turned to SNAIN. Isn't that a genius term? Snain, or snow and rain, is a term a friendly Lake Tahoe-r, who I was riding up with on Gold Coast Funitel, used.

A day of Snain. Happy New Year!

After arriving at the top of Gold Coast, my skiing partners and I went to ride the Emigrant 3 person chairlift. Atop, Emigrant is measured at an elevation of 8,700 feet. It's a good thing we rode it the day before to partake the views since visibility today was extremely sparse. A whiteout, really. We made a meeting time and they went ahead (they are fast and with my current boot situation, I prefer to take my time). Not to say I am a slow old lady skier, but I believe older women pass me at the moment.

Let's just say if I was in a snow globe and someone shook it, I would've been better off. Winds gusting, snow blowing around. Did I teleport to a skiing expedition in Antarctica? If I did, Tim Konrad from unofficialsquaw.com would be there to guide me. There would probably be penguins too. Nope, just me and the occasional skier passing. My foot beds are too loose for these retched conditions. There was no snain and I was up to my shins in powder -- wow. I had never skied in high powder before and I wished I had better fitting boots. For any non skiers reading this, ski boots are key. They should be a tight fit. Currently, mine are not and there's a lot of wiggle room making it difficult to control my turns and get up in skis if I should fall. Oh yep, I had a small side fall in the first part of the vertical on my way down to Shirley Lake Express. I was pleased I had my new bright gold puff jacket on so that if I should get buried, someone would be able to dig me out. Luckily, I got up and started to descend.

Once I was away from the top, conditions weren't bad and I coasted down the mountain carving fresh tracks while overlapping a few that were there. Due to my boot issues, I called it a day early. I remembered I purchased a Squaw Valley Spanky (the original sports hanky for goggles and such) as a souvenir. Something I could've used after I defeated the snain and snow globe terror. Ah well, there's always next time.

Sunrise on Lake Tahoe before leaving January 2.