Tahoe from 10,000 feet....

Following a great week climbing at Joshua Tree NP with a great crowd of people (photo 1; from left to right Vince, me, Edwin, Kat, Clement, Ian and Daniel), we (myself and various work colleagues) headed to Lake Tahoe on the Nevada border to spend new years in a ski cabin close to the Alpine Meadows ski resort. Some Lake Tahoe trivia for you:

(1) It is the largest (22 miles long and 12 miles wide) and one of the highest (6225 feet above sea level) alpine lakes in North America,
(2) It contains enough water to submerge California (total surface area of 158,869 square miles or 411,471 square km) to a depth of 14.5 inches (thats 37cm to the metrically inclined),
(3) Scenes from “The Godfather II” and “Bonanza” were shot in and around Lake Tahoe, as well as “The Bodyguard” with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston and “City of Angels” with Meg Ryan and Nicholas Cage, and
(4) The water evaporating from its surface annually is equivalent to LA's (population 10.2 million) water consumption for 5 years.

The cabin was fantastic (photo 2) and the hot tub even more so! It made the perfect spot to see in the new year in style (photo 3; from left to right - me, Jay, Delphine, Dave, Fred, Colette, Elaine and Julie behind the camera). However, the highlight of the weekend for me was my first flying lesson. Julie's friend Fred, from her CalTech days, has built his own 2 seater plane (photos 4 and 5) and was kind enough to take a few of us up for a flying lesson and some airborne acrobatics; some steep banking curves pulling around 3 G's and a couple of "aileron rolls" - truly mind blowing. Its amazing how much concentration it took for me just to keep the plane flying straight and level.

The new year started with another first - snowboarding (photo 6). Its harder than it looks and I'm still hurting today - but i did manage to balance and stay on my feet (well on the green slopes at least, the steeper blues proved somewhat more challenging) and was getting into turning, which for an afternoons work was good going I reckon. Plenty of time left this year to master it once I recover from all the bumps and bruises!

Laters

Dave