Tahoe School Week

Back in November when we figured we were going to be doing this COVID-induced remote schooling for the long haul, Lance proposed doing a week up in Tahoe with the kids. They are all in the same learning pod, and if we’re being forced into remote schooling, then why the hell not take advantage of it?!

I’d read and heard about a good portion of the San Francisco Bay Area moving to Tahoe for the winter given many white collar jobs facilitate working from pretty much anywhere during COVID. We didn’t realize just how many people had flocked to Tahoe until attempting to get to Alpine Meadows on our first day in the mountains (which happened to be a Saturday, and also the first weekend day after seven feet of new snow the week prior…). We left the cabin in Truckee at 8:03AM. We arrived at Squaw Valley at 10:24AM. Two hours and 21 minutes. Totally jacked. That’s a 15 mile drive that usually takes around 23 minutes. SF Gate published an article about it, it was so bad: Three Hours to Go Seven Miles. To add to the pain, I was watching the Squaw Alpine operations Twitter account while we were crawling along Highway 89, on which it was announced the parking at Alpine Meadows was full. So we were racing the other mountain-goers to find a parking space at Squaw, which the Twitter feed also noted was close to capacity. Long story short: we ended up paying $40 to park at the Squaw Creek Resort, a small price to pay to be able to get on the slopes for the day! Highway 89 was backed up for miles as the roads into both Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows were closed by about 10:30AM. Thousands of people were turned away. California COVID dreamin’…

After the stress of the drive in, getting to enjoy the almost seven feet of snow that fell the week prior made it feel all worth it. It’d stayed cold since the snow dropped, so it was still great quality fluff. Fun to see the little rat pack of four kids hammering down the mountain like little bees.

We wised up on day two – a Sunday – and left the cabin at 7AM with hot breakfast burritos packed in a warmer and kids clothed ready for the slopes. We hit traffic even that early: it took us roughly an hour to get to the Alpine Meadows parking lot, more than twice as long as usual, but we rolled in with a slot close to the lifts and all enjoyed a hot breakfast in the sunny but cold (15F/-9C) temps. The rest of the North Shore had a similar idea: Alpine Meadows lots were full by 9:30AM and Squaw by 10:00AM. That said, the slopes weren’t overly crowded as their seemed to be a lot of people driving solo so as to avoid carpooling during COVID. And with the cold temps the snow quality remained excellent from the previous week’s storm. At Max’s request we lapped Alpine Bowl over and over to take advantage of the conditions in the shade up top.

Lance’s alter ego – Party Lance – joined us after such a solid day on the slopes, the four adults played President late into the evening after some of Lance’s delicious homemade chili. Lisa and I have been playing President with the AGR boys for 20+ years, it’s not often we see new rules so I want to jot down three that came up during our game (so I can remember them for next time…):

1. No social fours
2. Asshole gets ignored (and if you respond to the asshole you have to drink)
3. Asshole has to play with socks on their hands

Unfortunately Amy had to bid us farewell on day three – someone’s got to bring home the bacon – but fortunately for us the crowds disappeared with the weekend and we enjoyed some empty slopes at Alpine on Monday. We settled into our schooling groove: a few hours of skiing in the morning, followed by lunch back at the cabin, schoolwork in the afternoon, then sledding and cave building in the snow outside. We’ve been quite fortunate with our little Alexander Valley school pod during COVID – especially with the kids’ homeschooling teacher Emily – but it sure was nice to have a bit of a change of scenery for the week.

With everyone so covered up it might be a little tricky to recognize everyone in the vid below. Orange helmets: Max and Lilia. Pink helmets: Cam and Maysen. Blue jacket: Lance. Turquoise jacket: Lisa. You probably don’t want to spend five minutes watching other people’s kids ski, but at a minimum it’s worth fast forwarding to 1:45 just to see Max’s yard sale while hurtling down Charity.

Tuesday brought a warmish storm to the mountains, we managed a couple of hours on the slopes but the snow had a super high moisture content as it rolled in from the west and had a few of us shivering with wet hands or bums (or both!). It was our shortest day on the slopes, but even so we had some great turns during the dump and even emptier runs than the day before.

The storm delivered 16 inches of powder to the peaks at Alpine Meadows, it was classic Sierra snow (= heavy) but great to get out amongst it. The parents were motivated to stay a little longer before schoolwork began on day five, so we packed lunches and scoffed them down in the parking lot so we could stretch the kids a little longer on the fresh snow. A few grumbles from the grommets about schoolwork after a full day on the slopes, but we got it done and it was worth the complaints to take advantage of the fresh pow.

We had magic conditions for our last couple of days in the mountains: plenty of coverage, empty slopes and not a cloud in the sky. It was windy at times, but that didn’t hamper everyone’s stoke, and it was general consensus that day six – Thursday – was everyone’s favorite day on the slopes. All four kids progressed amazingly well with their skiing after seven days straight on their skis. The speed of the little rat pack seemed to increase a little each day to the point where Lisa was having trouble keeping up with some of the kids by the end of the week. Max had his mum a little nervous boosting off the kickers in the terrain parks (photos below), fun to see him and Cam tackling the terrain park boxes as well.

Our luge track gets special mention, the kids had hours and hours of fun sliding down it after schoolwork was complete each day. Such good exercise for them, too. The snow cave Lance built also deserves special mention, we left it constructed so we’ll see how it withstands the elements for the rest of the winter. I think the kids are secretly hoping some kind of forest animal sets up house in it.

We can’t believe how quickly the week went by! Thanks so much to Lance and Amy for facilitating a week of school up in the mountains, definitely a silver lining to COVID. Can’t wait to get the four little ones back out on the slopes together again sometime soon.