Leaving my job and beginning an adventure, first stop Tahoe!

March 2024

For the past two years I've been working for Amazon Web Services which I really enjoyed for many reasons but sadly the top dogs wanted everyone in the office which for me meant Seattle and as I live in Leavenworth that was not feasible. After a year of job insecurity and uncertainty along with pressure being put on me to comply I made the decision to leave. Soon after, Ilana and I hit the road heading to Tahoe with plans to meet friends and spend some time at Ilana's grandmothers beautiful cabin on Fallen Leaf Lake and do some skiing. Everyone else was just coming down for the week and then heading home, I was with my my new found bottomless stash of free time and didn't really have a plan besides going on some adventures in the Sierras.

A snowy drive down due to a storm that was making its way up the west coast. We spent a night in Bend (pictured) and then an hour outside of Reno before finally making it to Tahoe.
As soon as we got into Tahoe we stopped by Heavenly for a bit of Skiing with Ilana and to meet my buddy Isaac from high school who was nearing the end of an epic winter ski adventure across the US.
Excited that we were able to make it to the cabin with the van. Some had to work a bit in the coming days and the Starlink flagpole was burried under 6 feet of snow but made it work with some duct tape and a shovel.
Enjoyed making and eating meals together over the days, it was great to see friends I rarely get to see these days. We played salad bowl which apparently has a fourth and final round where you still have to act it out but under a blanket (pictured).

Skiing Angora Peak out the cabin's door

From the cabin we could easily walk outside, put our skis on, and ski up Angora Peak to the summit at 8600ft. Coming from home where the elevation was 1000ft it definitely felt a lot harder but it was really fun to get out with close friends from different parts of my life and have everyone meet each other in such an awesome setting.

Fallen Leaf Lake is a small lake just south of Lake Tahoe seperated from each other by a narrow band of land.
Amazing views of Mt Tallac on the way up.
Feeling like I'm breathing less oxygen and am very tired going up, Isaac blazing trail barely catching a sweat.
Didn't take long and we all reached the rocky summit of Angora Peak and could see to the other side where the desolation wilderness zone of the Eldorado National Forest.
Summit hang then headed down.
Snow was surprisingly good and the ski back down to the cabin was a blast.

Kirkwood

Kirkwood is one of the other Epic Pass ski resorts in the area and some of us including myself had never been so we went to check it out. Not sure how I hadn't skiied at Kirkwood in past seasons when I had the Epic Pass and was in tahoe but holy moley that is a good mountain for skiing.

Ilana in her natural habitat skiing expert terrain.

The terrain at Kirkwood is what stood out to me, the mountain is big, it's rugged, it's full of exciting chutes and drops, and it's got insanely wild ski lines to keep you curious. I decided while I was there I would add a whole section to this report featuring the couloirs I saw in my relatively short time at Kirkwood.

The Couloirs of Kirkwood

There is a very obvious one kind of right in the middle of the mountain that you can see from other chairs and access from The Wall lift.
Huge cliffs seperated by couloirs that appeared at varying degrees of difficulty along the ridgeline west of The Wall.
Some couloirs off of The Cornice chair lift.
Very enjoyable views on the way up The Wall chair.
The rugged face above Eagle Bowl riddle with couloirs.
Very wild lines exist in Eagle Bowl from the looks of it. You'd have to hike and I'm not sure what's allowed vs what you might lose a pass for but I imagine people do some gnarly skiing here.

Onwards to Bishop

The friends headed home and I am now onto Bishop a town about three hours south of Tahoe on the east side of the mountains where the mountains end and the desert begins. Bishop is surrounded by incredible climbing hosting many areas such as the Owens River Gorge, The Buttermilks, Volcanic Tablelands Areas, Pine Creek, and more. I am very excited for the arrival of spring which meant climbing and especially excited to check out new areas that are classic.

It's a beautiful drive down on the 395 and a beautiful view to arrive to in the Buttermilks.
Made it to Bishop and made some new friends including Jack who has a wooden deck on his van roof.

One of the friends I saw in Tahoe who I don’t see often these days introduced me to the band Phish and brought me to my first show almost a decade ago, so I’ll end this post with a lyric I love from Phish’s song Backwards Down the Number Line.

You decide what it contains
How long it goes, but this remains
The only rule is it begins