Hot Summer Nights

This article got me really mad:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1245478/Mild-weather-Canada-forces-Vancouver-ship-tons-snow-Winter-Olympics.html

“Organisers admitted that they seriously  underestimated the impact of climate change when they picked the venue at Cypress Mountain, Vancouver, for some of  the most popular ski and  snowboard events.”

[check back for pictures in the next day or two!]

This past week has been pretty intense here in Southern California.  For five days straight we’ve been having rain and wind akin to small monsoons.  It was pretty weird…every day a new storm would roll through, with pouring rain and heavy winds.  This kind of weather is very unusual for Southern California, and a 5 day stretch of it is almost unheard of.  Lots of records were broken, including a barometric pressure reading that was originally set in the late 1800′s.

Even though it was pretty depressing after the first few days, we did get some cool thunderstorms – something I thought I wouldn’t see much of since San Diego rarely gets them.  I love thunderstorms and can’t get enough of them!

Another benefit of these storms was the fact that they dumped a LOT of snow in the local mountains!  This means some goooood snowboarding!

Yesterday Val and I went up to Mt. Baldy which is just a bit northeast of LA.  It’s 8600′ at the peak I think.  You have to put chains on your tires if you don’t have 4 wheel drive.  The mountain roads got kind of treacherous as you get higher, and at one point I had to turn around because even with chains I wasn’t getting any traction on the road.  My tires were spinning and I wasn’t going anywhere.

Mt. Baldy is a quaint mountain – I don’t know how else to describe it.  It’s pretty natural – it’s not like they cleared out a bunch of trees and rocks to make wide open trails – instead they left a lot of natural obstacles.  The chairlifts are kind of old too, and known to stop for periods of time.  I’m not sure why the lifts stop, but it’s kind of weird.

It got pretty snowy and windy by the time we eventually made our way to the summit, and getting down was pretty much an exercise in blind snowboarding.  There was so much powder though!  It makes such a huge difference – you really feel like you’re floating through the snow instead of scratching over it.

On the way home we saw the most AMAZING sunset I’ve ever seen.  I couldn’t believe it.  I took pictures but it just doesn’t do it justice at all.  The sky opened up in multiple layers of orange, purple, and blue.  It was intense.  Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful sunset.

Looks like we’re going to hit Mt. High tomorrow for round two, trying to take advantage of all the new snow while we can!  Since we had so much rain recently we have to wait a bit to surf since all that rainwater causes massive amounts of polluted runoff to drain into the ocean.  This can be pretty dangerous to swim in, and the risk of getting some sort of infection is sadly kind of high.  It’s an unfortunate fact of life here in California.

I really don’t like taking antibiotics but I’m so glad they exist.  Unfortunately that cold that I caught while I was in Whistler turned into a sinus infection somehow.  It was going on 10-11 days and I just wasn’t getting any better.  So much congestion, coughing, post nasal drip.  I had to go back do the doctor because I couldn’t take it anymore.  The odd thing was that the doc barely even examined me.  I hate that.  I mean come on I’m paying you like $70, I don’t go just to tell you I think I have a sinus infection and have you agree with me.  He only looked in my throat.  HOW can you diagnose a sinus infection by looking in my throat?  Either way, I told him all my symptoms and he agreed with me and gave me Zithromax.  I love this antibiotic because it’s only 5 days.  I had Cipro for the last infection a month ago and it was awful…had to take it twice a day for 10 days, and you couldn’t eat any sort of dairy or anything that has been fortified with calcium with the antibiotic.  Needless to say it really limited my food choices.  I mean, even eggo waffles are foritifed with calcium.  EVERYTHING seems to be fortified with calcium these days, it’s pretty crazy.  I bet my milk is calcium fortified.  It seems like everything I wanted to eat had some sort of cheese or dairy in it, or else it had calcium.  I got so frustrated!

Anyway.  I’m on day 4 of Zithromax and my nose is FINALLY not all clogged up and I’ve got my sense of smell back.  My right ear is still making the occasional crackling noise, but I think I’m pretty much getting better.  Finally.  Maybe this will be the last of these stupid sicknesses.  I feel like I’ve been sick 90% of the time since I arrived in California at the end of October, and I’m NOT exaggerating.  I think I’ve only had about 2 weeks of clean health since then.  This is really unlike me – I used to get sick a lot with strep throat/colds/sinus issues when I was a kid, but since college I’ve been pretty healthy.  My friends here must think I’m some sickly person.

In other news, it seems that San Diego (actually all of California) is in the crosshairs of a pretty heavy storm system.  It’s going to deluge rain for the next 5 days, and it’s going to be really windy.  I just hope we don’t get a lot of flooding.  What is annoying is that I won’t be able to surf for at least a week.  After it rains around here you should wait a few days for the runoff to dissipate.  It all runs into the ocean taking all the pollutants and some sewage with it.  That’s all I need – another sinus infection.

The good thing about these storms is that they will hopefully dump a lot of snow in the mountains here in California, and that means some good snowboarding!  Even if my friends can’t go I might make a solo shot to Mountain High or something, especially if I can’t surf for a few days after all this rain.

Well, I really should be doing work, but I’m having a severe crisis of concentration.  So, I guess I’ll post a little update here since I’ve been meaning to anyway.

I just got back from an amazing snowboarding trip to Whistler, Canada.  Whistler is actually technically Whistler Blackcomb.  It’s a ski resort with two mountains (both huge).  Whistler is a mountain, and Blackcomb is a glacier.  Both have incredible terrain and ski runs.  If you started at the top, I believe it would take you about a half hour – 40 minutes to make it all the way to the bottom.  I guess if you were really fast you could do it in less time, but for normal people it takes a LONG time to get all the way down!  Usually you don’t do that though, you just go to one section of the mountain and stay there for a bit.

I went with my friends Val and Lori, and we stayed at Barb’s apartment.  Barb is our friend who moved from San Diego to Whistler this past summer.  She let us stay at her apartment for free, which was awesome!  It was close quarters but we had fun cooking dinners and breakfasts, and having chocolate fondue.

We went for New Year’s, and on New Year’s day we got a foot of fresh powder.  It was snowing nonstop for three days!

My favorite session on the mountain was when Barb took us to the alpine area called 7th Heaven.  It starts above the treeline and then opens up into a sloping meadow of open runs and copses of trees.   We went through a few stands of trees which was challenging.  Tree riding means trying to find a path between the trunks and navigating the powder in between.  Often there are already gouges in the snow from others going through the trees, so that adds to the difficulty.  We went through a few narrow keyholes where it was basically only as wide as my board and tree trunks were whizzing by inches from my head.  (Yes, I do wear a helmet)

At The Entrance To The Whistler Olympic Park (L to R: Myself, Barb, Lori, and Val)

The Winter Olympics are going to take place in Vancouver and Whistler this year, so we got to take in all the improvements and construction going in to the preparation for the games.  Unfortunately we couldn’t really see the Whistler Olympic park because they had shut it down for security measures.  It’s kind of sad that the world is like that now, but such is life I guess.

L to R, Me, Lori, Val - Riding the lift

Winter Wonderland on Blackcomb

I can’t wait to go back!  I had a great time.

The only problem I had during the trip is that Lori unfortunately got a cold the night before we left, and both Barb and I caught it.  So I’m sick yet again!!  Fortunately it wasn’t bad enough to stop me from snowboarding.  It was just annoying that my nose was running all the time.

Actually, I felt *great* when I was on the hill, in terms of my body.  I didn’t even get that sore!  Last year when I went to Whistler I got so incredibly sore that I couldn’t move.  I don’t know if it’s because we were doing shorter days or what, but my legs felt pretty strong the whole time.  Maybe my snowboarding technique is just better so that I put less strain on my muscles.  Who knows!

Hopefully we’ll take a few more boarding trips this Winter.  Val is talking about going to Mammoth, and it sounds really fun.  It’s about 6-7 hours north of San Diego, so it’s a bit of a drive, but I was looking at their website and the mountain looks huge.

I was telling my friends that after officially learning the basics of how to snowboard over the course of 3 trips to Vermont during High School, I pretty much perfected my snowboarding technique on the most dinky little hills in Michigan.  Mt. Brighton was only about 20 minutes away from the U of M, so it was a great place to go just to work on technique and get my kicks for an afternoon.  The only thing is – Mt. Brighton is a converted landfill (aka garbage dump).  It is TINY.  The hill itself is only like 230ft. high!  Let’s just say that it has made me truly appreciate going to a real mountain   I mean, Whistler makes Brighton look like a speck of dust.

Tiny Mt. Brighton