If you go down to the woods today

On Sunday we went to a timeshare presentation and it was interesting observing all their sales techniques but even better when we picked up our reward at the end.  Unfortunately our plan to ride at Northstar in the afternoon was scuppered by lack of space in the parking lot so we enjoyed the scenic drive back to South Lake Tahoe and then out to Camp Richardson for some cross country skiing.  Yes do read that correctly, cross country skiing!  Luckily we only had an hour so the injuries due to the severe lack of control were kept to a minimum.

We managed to get ourselves sorted out on Tuesday and after a few diversions made it to Squaw Valley which for us was very enjoyable due to the lack of flat traverses.  It did take a change in mindset to get used to such an open resort with very few named runs but we lived it up riding down steep runs, well groomed runs and through the trees.  As we drove home around the lake we saw the clouds coming in and the snow started falling.

On Wednesday we woke to a slightly snowy day but the roads we needed to go along to get back to Squaw Valley were closed to cars without chains.  We tried to drive round the lake but even though the ploughed and gritted roads were fine, we reached a point where they had just stopped and an icy snowy windy road suddenly did not seem like such a good idea.  To show how bad it was it took a good ten minutes to turn the car around and head back up the road.  After considering our options we drove to the west side of Heavenly and spent the afternoon on a couple of runs and running through the woods from one run to another.