Skiing Sun Valley, ID during the COVID pandemic February 16-22, 2021

Good morning, Mt. Baldy!

 It is strange that in the midst of a pandemic that has seemed to prevent any type of opportunity,  our worst enemy coronavirus made it possible for us to take a trip we could not have taken otherwise.  Last year we had figured would be the last we could destination ski over the February break.  We would have two children away at college who would not have a break in their school schedules and the third would be starting his first varsity baseball season.  Well, with NONE of my kids actually attending live classes and baseball practice nowhere on the immediate horizon, we had an opportunity and we grabbed it.  Not only were the four of us that live at home going back to Sun Valley, our oldest daughter, who had not been able to join us the previous two years, was coming from San Diego to ski with us in Idaho.

Visibility for days!

I really needed this trip.  I was really done with all the COVID crap in California and even worse, Santa Clara County.  There was nothing that was going to stop me.  In the weeks and months preceding, it seemed like we got bad news after more bad news.  There were times however I wondered if this vacation was actually going to happen.  About one month prior, Alaska changed all our flights around, making it virtually impossible for all of us to meet up at the Boise airport.  We were able to fix things, but now the flying was not so easy.  About ten days before the trip, I had my family on lockdown, trying to prevent any unnecessary exposure, but lo and behold, my son managed to get exposed to COVID anyway at baseball conditioning, literally 8 days before we were to leave.  I knew he wasn't going to get it, but a 10 day quarantine was the rule, negative tests or not.  There was no way we were not going but getting on a plane was pretty blatant, so we drove.  We cancelled the flights, packed the car, bought groceries, changed the oil, made a hotel reservation in Reno, left a day early, and drove 12.5 hours to Sun Valley, ID.

SKIING DURING THE COVID PANDEMIC:

The Ski Area itself....

Honestly, I have to say that between the weather, the snow conditions, the location and the company, these were the three best days of skiing we ever had in our lives.  Now for me to say that, we must have been very minimally impacted by COVID restrictions. There were restrictions in place, but they did not seem to have the same oppressive nature experienced in other walks of life.

It was my understanding that they were limiting the number of tickets being sold daily, but you did not have to make a reservation.  I bought my tickets about a week in advance.

Probably the biggest accommodation made for COVID came in the form of lift operations.  Instead of packing the empty seats with singles and awkwardly putting people who don't know each other on a painful ten minute ride up the mountain, it was no longer permitted to ride with some one you did not know.  As the chairs are mostly quads, we were forced into a group of three and a group of two.  Two separate household singles could ride together but at opposite ends of the chair.  Though the gondola seats 8, you could not ride with someone you didn't know.  All this spacing did effectively make the lift lines a bit longer, especially the Saturday the gondola was closed, but it was still nothing like what I used to experience during ski week in California.  Face masks were required while in line and this was enforced.  I think there was some weak effort at keeping people six feet apart in line, but this was not enforced.

You did not have to wear your mask while skiing or while riding the lift, but quite frankly, when ya get up to a good speed you really do want that thing on or risk freezing your face.  You do have to wear it outdoors on the grounds and inside the lodge in the bathrooms and when not seated at your table.  Another nice thing is that everyone is just wearing those tube neck gaiters anyway, not those awful blue medical masks, so it's almost just part of your ski gear.

There are far fewer tables in the lodge.  There are signs encouraging you to limit your time at the table.  You can no longer toss your bag in a corner (now people just toss them outside).  No more free cubbies, but there is a very easily accessible bag check ($7 per day).  No more water glasses and water cooler. No live music. There is a fairly lively bar scene set up outside with some of the coolest space heaters I have ever seen.  You can still eat food brought from home in the lodge and no one bugs you about it.

And otherwise:

A big big thank you to Snowcreek Apartments (where we stayed for the third time) who decided adults could be intelligent enough to follow some simple rules and allowed the hot tub to be open!  The hot tub was limited to 8 adults and this was self enforced.  Two nights we had only one other couple join us,  The third night there were 8 adults already there when we got there, so we turned around and went back to the apartment and enjoyed hot showers instead.  Go figure!

Another item worth mentioning is that our decision to drive required us to spend the night in Reno Nevada where we went once again for a great INDOOR meal.  When we crossed the border into Nevada from California I literally fist pumped.  So sick of all the restrictions here.  Obviously, both Idaho and Nevada have shown that in fact you can be indoors during a pandemic and not get sick.

AND WHAT'S NEW ON MOUNT BALDY??

Warmer weather!!

Though the past two years had left us believing that Sun Valley, ID was the next best thing to Siberia, this year we actually saw double digit temperatures!! Though the first day hovered at about 20, the second and third days hovered around 30!  The first day I didn't make it two hours before shedding a T shirt which I wound up carrying until lunch AND my glove liners, which I never wore again.  The second day I braved shedding yet another layer and by the third afternoon, I, dare I say it, shed my fleece sweater as well.  You still had to wear a lot of clothes, 4 layers at the minimum instead of 7, but it was nice not feeling so much like a stuffed turkey AND not having numb fingers and toes.

Sunrise Expansion of 380 acres and a new lift:

Sunrise expansion from
 the Broadway chair

Since last winter, Sun Valley has completed the Sunrise Expansion, which is the biggest expansion of terrain on Mount Baldy in two decades.  The expansion, which officially opened on February 3, 2021,just two weeks before we arrived, added 380 acres, or an additional 20% of skiable terrain.  It is largely considered to be an advanced/expert area, including open bowls and steep chutes.  We stayed out of that stuff, but most noteworthy for us was the replacement of the dilapidated 2 seater Cold Springs chair (circa 1970) with the slick detachable high speed Broadway Express Quad Chair. The chair drops you at mostly the same place as the Cold Springs chair did, but begins over a 1000 feet farther down the mountain.  The new chair reminds us of Peter Pan in the way it whips you into position and then shoots you off into flight.

AND NOW FOR MY NEW LITTLE APP-STRAVA!!

About a month ago I was turned on to this cool little app while trying to find a GPS type tracking system for my hikes, walks and rides completed during my daily exercise.  The super cool thing about Strava is that can track all sorts of activity, including in line skating, canoeing, swimming, and yes, SKIING.  I actually didn't turn it on until the third day.  I turned it on in the morning and then separately in the afternoon.  Super fun to see that we skied nearly 47 miles and 33,000 vertical feet over the course of the day, though I confess I think that includes the distances covered on the chair lifts.  The app also gives you a little map of the mountain that shows all the terrain you have covered.  My favorite stat, my top speed of 51 MPH.  Yea, some day I am going to live to regret that....

ISN'T THIS SUPER COOL?

STRAVA describes our afternoon ..

Hey how about we look at some more pictures!!

Ready to ride the Gondola!!

A cozy ride up the hill

Ready to brave the Mayday Bowl!

At the top of Seattle Ridge with majestic Mayday 

Bowl in the background

And enjoying our Sun Valley family favorite,

The Ram

Well, it has been a long time since I posted.  I sure would love to to start travelling more regularly soon! 

Lake Tahoe travel and the COVID epidemic July 31 to Aug 5 2020

 I made my reservations for Lake Tahoe in January of 2020, far before we had even heard of COVID.  The intention was to return from two weeks in Hawaii on July 31 and leave for Tahoe for four nights the next day.  When I learned that we weren't going to Hawaii at all, I booked a week in Sunriver, OR.  (See my blogpost on this!)  However, this still gave us a week before we were scheduled to go to Tahoe so I needed to fill this time or risk feeling like I needed to work at my real job during the break-yuck!  I got to work on extending the Tahoe vacation.  By the time I started working on this, June 20 or so, Tahoe accommodations were quite occupied and there was very little available in our price range.  I managed to book an additional day onto our VRBO rental, and hoped to secure another Lake Village condo for another three nights prior, making our pack up and move in the middle of the week a little less stressful.  This was not to be, however, so I checked into Club Tahoe Resort in Incline Village for the first three nights of our Tahoe vacation.  I chose to book on the Nevada side, hoping for a less heavy handed COVID restrictions.

TAHOE AND COVID-

Well, whether in Nevada or California, COVID does not seem to be impacting the amount of fun people are having this summer in this area. The Tahoe counties (of which we drove through 5) are not Bay Area Counties, that is for sure. You are required to wear a mask indoors.  In outdoor restaurants on the California side, you can remove your mask when seated at your table.  In Nevada you can eat indoors at socially distanced tables with the same mask restrictions.  We did both, dining al fresco at the darling Scusa on Lake Tahoe Blvd, and enjoying breakfast at the Kingsbury grade location of the Red Hut.  Both felt really safe. Mini golf is open, trails are open, marinas and rental activities are open.  Wear your mask while you fill out paperwork and start off, then take it off--simple, right?

Some limitations popped up.  The clubhouse at Lake Village, with access to the pool, BBQ's, tennis, ping pong and pool, was closed. Club Tahoe Resort's bar was closed and there was no housekeeping.  Another big bummer at CTR was the moratorium on beach passes for Incline Village's private beaches, which forced us to the public beaches, yucky Kings Beach, a wasteland of heat and bodies, and much more pleasantly Lake Forest Beach, a quiet and secluded tiny spot against the water.  Public beach parking lots also decreased their capacities, necessitating the back up of cars on the highways early in the morning.  Ever eat your breakfast on the beach?

The beaches are all open and they are packed and no one wears a mask on the beaches.  Despite the crowds, there is plenty of room to social distance.   Days we were at the beaches, Pope, Sand Harbor, and Skunk Harbor, we followed the examples of others and marked out wide boundaries of "stuff" discouraging others from coming too close and giving ourselves a wide berth to gather our group.

We saw a few people wearing masks on the trails.  This is quite a surprise as the decreased oxygen in the air coupled with the heat and exertion would cause any normal person to just give up the ghost.  This is really where I draw the line.  There is no possibility that anyone who climbed 3300 feet to make it to the top of Mount Tallac has COVID-19, or anything else for that matter, except a strong aerobically sound body, and possibly some mental insanity.

Now if I said that everyone in Lake Tahoe was taking COVID seriously by socially distancing from all those outside their households I'd be big time lying.  Yes, I would say people were staying away from other parties, however, some of the parties were HUGE, as much as like 40 people.  Now, I'm not thinking these people were all living under one roof back in the Bay Area. Here in Tahoe with their "extended pods," people were definitely taking risks.  Oh boy.  We saw a group of like fifteen 20 year olds getting drunk as skunks huddled under one easy up on Sand Harbor Beach.  The girls were so lit they couldn't even stand, let alone execute sound COVID judgement. Another time we saw three boats in Skunk Harbor pull up side by side, each with about 8 passengers, tie off and start to co-mingle as if it was a normal day.  My fave was when rafting down the Truckee River we encountered like 5 eight person rafts pulled off to the side.  30-40 men women and children sat stood and swam, close talking and drinking beer.  We are not too crazy strict about this whole thing but my kids sat wide eyed at the spectacle.  My 20 year old daughter summed it up, "and THAT is how you spread COVID!"  Yeah, I get it.  It's families, cousins, college friends, who miss each other and want to have a good time just for a few days in a beautiful place and forget about the damn virus.  I can't say that given the same situation I wouldn't take the same risks.  I don't know.  It's nice to feel normal for a bit.

CROWDS:

Well one thing is for sure.  The coronavirus did not keep anyone away from the lake.  In fact, it seemed that all those Bay Area families who, like us, were denied their Hawaiian, Mexican, and European vacations all went in their desperation to wherever they could go, and, like us, they went to Lake Tahoe.

Oh and the crowds were real, necessitating some real planning.  If you couldn't get your butt out of bed and to your beach destination early in the morning, you were basically up a creek without a lily pad.  Sand Harbor was only allowing about 60% of their usual parking capacity, requiring people to queue up on Highway 28 prior to 8AM opening.  On Saturday morning at 7:40 am we were a significant distance from the entrance, maybe half a mile, and feared having the gates shut on us!  Luckily we were able to slowly make our way up to the front to be admitted at about 8:10 am.  It is nearly certain the gates closed within minutes behind us, not to open to anyone for the day until 5 pm.  

The scary line to get into Sand Harbor

On Saturday we set up our easy up and chairs and left them to make our paddle surfboard reservation at 8:30.  Sand Harbor Rentals started only taking reservations at 8:30 and 9 as those who were getting to the beach later were getting shut out on parking and were getting stuck being charged for their missed later reservations.  After returning to our beach camp and spending a lovely day on the slightly overcrowded beach we drove back to our Lake Village condo.  Here we saw the damage to all the lazy shmucks ,that missed their wake up calls.  Basically every inch of Highway 28 in both directions was lined with cars.  People just parked and headed down the slope looking for water, many already ticketed having ignored the no parking signs.  There are real beaches down there, Chimney Beach and Secret Beach, but the real estate down there is not expansive, and the best part is you get to haul your stuff down there, and then back up at the end of the day.  No thanks.

Tuesday we returned to Sand Harbor at the same ungodly hour.  This time the highway patrol prevented us from queuing so we had to find a turn out and approach from the other side.  The week day seemed to                                                                             present a little less pressure.

On Sunday we arrived at the Mount Tallac trailhead at 7:50am.  It was full so we parked about .1 mile down the road.  No biggee.  On the way we passed by Pope Beach which had a queue on the highway.  After the hike we headed to Nevada Beach at 4pm hoping for a quick dip, but again parking was full and we wound up adding more steps to reach the beach from our roadside parking spot.

We finally DID get onto Sand Harbor Beach

NEW ADVENTURE!  TRUCKEE RIVER RAFTING

With the extension of our vacation, we now had two full days to occupy ourselves in a completely new area of the lake!  One thing we had heard a lot about but had never tried.was rafting down the Truckee River.  Since we were to be in the area, I decided to book us a raft.

From start to finish this whole experience was a hoot and we would do it again in a second.  The put in site is located at 175 W River Road in Tahoe City.  Because of COVID the number of rafts on the river has been decreased by 50%  making reservations mandatory. Two to ten person rafts are available.  Each adult costs 55$ which include the rental of the raft and the shuttle ride back to Tahoe City.  Kids 6-12 are $35. Life vests are provided but I did not notice anywhere that wearing them is required. You can start as early at 8:30 or as late at 3:30, though on Saturday you must be on the river by 12:30 pm (last shuttle at four). 

First you are escorted to 5 minute parking where you can unload before your driver moves your car to an offsite lot and is shuttled back.  Then it's off to the put in site!

The whole venture is 4 miles long and takes anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on the level of the river.  It is a slow and scenic float trip along which is it easy to pull off, jump out, swim, and party if you want.  The current is very gentle and in most spots shallow enough to stand. There are a few portapotties along the way if the hang over the side and pee avenue is not your thing.  Soft coolers are allowed and highly encouraged as the partaking of adult beverages greatly minimizes the frustration of the raft floating into the branches protruding from the sides of the river and cooperating on the steering.  Pair this with a bluetooth speaker and a good play list and you have a lovely midday excursion including water, sun, music, beer, scenery and hopefully some good company.  Really, it's fabulous.  Big thumbs up.

Lots of opportunity to swim

The ride ends at a River Ranch Pond where you pull into a platform, your raft is taken care of, and you head for the waiting shuttle bus for your 10 minute ride back to Tahoe City.

Having lots of fun!

Well, that's about it for the summer travels.  Here's to hoping we will get some opportunities to get out of town in the future!!  Here are some pictures!

Words of warning at the Mount Tallac Trailhead

After I stopped crying.....

Dinner outside at Scusa

Skunk Harbor is a great piece of lakefront property, if you are willing to make the hike...