Richard and meatop powder and ski
down a road all white
with nothing in site
but snowy trees still green
forming a warm wintry scene
and a lonely rabbit's track
leading us back
to a sweeping alpine view
enjoyed by this German and Jew
Richard and I skied down the closed Soda Springs road for some miles and had the most awesome time breaking trail through the two or three feet of fresh powder that had fallen the previous day and night. My backcountry skiis were perfect for the stuff, with their curved tips keeping me afloat and allowed for effortless gliding over the snow, while Richard's snowshoes sunk half a foot (which was nothing compared to when he tried it without the snowshoes and sank in the snow to his waist) and made for strenuous walking for him. Snowshoes have their benefits on steeper terrain (when skiis would need skins to be practical), but on a road like this skiis are king.
Getting up to Tahoe on Chrismas day was a challenge, as the weather in San Francisco started out hurricane-like, with wind and rain. Once we drove past Sacramento and up to 2,000 feet altitude, the rain became snow, through which we drove up to the 8,000 foot altitude of Nick's house in Norden. Chain controls on I-80 made for slow driving, which even with chains was tough, because we were driving Win's rear-wheel drive car, which naturally tends to fishtail in the snow. Nonetheless, the four of us (Richard, Yoko, Win, and me) made it by the evening and set off to warm up the house (which included melting the ice that had formed solid in the toilet bowls, so that we could use the bathrooms) and shovel the driveway for the four more cars that would join us (shoveling space for four more cars out of 4 feet of snow made for some good exercise and one broken shovel). Jeff, Nobuko, and Jayden made it later that night, as did Jeff and Diana. Willie, Logic, Heidi, and her 2 kids didn't make it past Sacramento that night due to the blizzard, and joined us the following day. Nick did likewise. Getting to Nick's house was an adventure, but the lack of efficient public transportation to such a popular destination as Lake Tahoe from the metropolis of San Francisco is symptomatic of my country's sad shortcoming in infrastructure development, in which many "third-world" countries such as China have already surpassed us. We're going to have to overcome our selfish individualness as a society if we're to continue to compete and prosper in the 21st century and beyond.
