Harford Ski Club
Heavenly Resort 2024 trip report
Feb.3 – Feb. 10 or Feb. 11, 2024
Trip Leader: Anne Webb
After this trip with Blue Ridge Ski Counsel our club has earned a couple of reputations: The club who stays the longest at parties and skies in the largest groups! There were two Apre ski parties and the farewell dinner buffet and dancing, and our club members were amongst the last to leave on at least two of these events. Apparently compared to the other 7 clubs on the trip we had most partiers off the slopes! And I noticed several times on the slopes, as we would stumble across members from other clubs, they tended to be in groups of 2-3. But for our club, 4-6 was often the lowest numbers of skiers in a group. One could say that we stick together and party!
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Our week started out a bit off schedule thanks to Mother Nature, Denver Airport, and United Airlines. Almost everyone who went thru Denver airport or was waiting on a plane coming from Denver was delayed that snowy Saturday. The airport had been shut down sometime before our mid-morning arrival causing many backups with arrivals, departures, gate availability and long waits for planes to get deiced. We had a long wait even after boarding our connecting flight between the plane baggage loader requiring on-the-spot maintenance and the nose of the plane being stuck at the gate, which our pilot was able to rock free. But after a long day the stars aligned and all 31 of us managed to meet up at Reno. Despite the mayhem in Denver I believe all luggage made it with the exception of 1 pair of skis. After our grocery stop we made it to Forest Suites at Lake Tahoe a few hours late. But what a greeting we got from the staff! It was the first time that the staff came out to the bus to give us some instruction on checking in and how the porterage would work. This was by far the smoothest check-in process I have ever experienced as a trip leader! I actually sat down and relaxed with a cold beer and ate my dinner while waiting for my luggage to be delivered. And Steve Landry was finally able to change out of his shirt that had the spot on it. Thanks to John Kampe we were all fully aware of the infamous spot!
The next morning, after our first of many scrumptious breakfasts at Forrest Suites, we were greeted by several inches of fresh snow with more on the way along with winds and the potential for thunder snowstorms. Most of us got out on the slopes in the driving snow and found out a couple hours later that the Heavenly gondola, the most convenient way back to our condos, does tend to get shut down with high winds. Having experienced thunder snow on the slopes in my past, I was not eager to relive that. So when the upper mountain lifts started shutting down, along with warnings from lift attendants that the gondola was sure to follow suite, I decided to get ‘ out of Dodge’. I little later, while I was enjoying the super warm, clean, relaxing hot tub, which I had all to myself, many others came trudging in from the end of their day having experienced how the shuttle system worked. Later that evening we attended the Blue Ridge Welcome Apre ski party at Harrah’s casino. We all got to dodge the car splatter on the way there; some of us faring better than others. All seemed to enjoy the food, drink and conversations abound.
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Much to our surprise the several feet of snow that was forecasted was transformed into a beautiful blue bird day on Monday, and we finally were able to see the Lake! Apparently the weather forecasters
aren’t any more accurate in Tahoe as they are back home. Maybe Punxsutawney Phil needs to take a
trip to Tahoe and share some tips! I was thrilled at being able to ski in my sunglasses and find plenty of untracked powder throughout the day. We all took advantage of the blue skies to capture the scenery and fellow skiers on the slopes. On our gondola ride home we discovered just how close Forrest Suites was to the gondola as we rode right above the condos. We also rode right over a nice Park area where Linda Miller went trail walking on her day off and picked up a huge pinecone that I requested. Kim Fleischman and Linda Skallman also noticed the camp, especially when they spotted 2 nearly bare assed young ladies taking videos/selfies in their thongs. I’m sure if you search social media you’ll find them somewhere.
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The snow gods showed up again that night providing more fresh snow. I believe we had at least a couple of inches of new snow mostly every day and the total for our week exceeded 36 inches. We certainly timed it right with it being mostly dry the week before and after our trip. Looking back the days all seem to bleed together! I do remember John Kampe doing an imitation of the old Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in, with Arte Johnson riding the tricycle, coming to a stop, only to topple over on his side. Unfortunately we did have some injuries with Michelle Wilkinson hurting her knee/meniscus, Dillion Doggett decided to become a tree hugger and customized his helmet and bruised his tattoos, and Dean Skallman had an injured Achilles before the trip and sadly was not able to ski. Luckily nobody ended up in urgent care or worse, just bruised (inside and out). Some others came down with some illnesses during the trip, but again nothing serious. Steve Landry luckily was able to ski all week despite some back issues prior to the trip and had some adventures along the way. He found out it took 4 lifts on the Nevada side to get back to the gondola after missing a left hand turn, and being the world famous Sci-fi author that he is, of course he got the Comet and Galaxy trails/lifts confused.
After enjoying our 2nd !pre ski party at Harrah’s, where our club closed out the event, several folks took the day off Wednesday and Johanna Peters organized a small group to go on a 6 hour tour around the Tahoe area with several stops in nearby cities. Those that went had some interesting stories to tell about local history. Had I taken a day off from skiing I would have joined them, but I planned to ski all 6 days. So instead of taking a day off I met up with Regina Shock and joined her on several runs of the bunny slope that afternoon. I found it most enjoyable and relaxing! Regina and I are looking forward to skiing with my son, her daughter, and our 2 young grandsons in the years to come. What adventurous grandmothers our grandsons have! Wednesday evening Forrest Suites treated us to our Wine and Cheese party that was rescheduled from our late arrival Saturday evening. We took advantage of the steps to the wedding chapel to get our club group picture for the trip.
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And I have to mention Drew (aka Bruce) from Baltimore ski club who joined skiing with our group and became our unofficial mountain tour guide. We certainly appreciated his knowledge in getting around the mountains. He also joined our group of 11 that took the day trip to Kirkwood that was rescheduled for Thursday. Kirkwood had much more snow and a greater base than Heavenly. The bus driver had to stop and put chains on for the long winding ride to the mountain and we made fresh tracks once again. I was able to remove Kirkwood from my bucket list and it did not disappoint! We found challenging Expert bowls and 2 unique gullies / natural half pipes in two different areas of the mountain that were tons of fun. We enjoyed lunch outside at the small but comfy downhome type lodge. We made it back in time for our dinner buffet and dancing event back at Harrah’s. The food was excellent and there was more than enough to go around. Many of us hit the dance floor and although we requested the disco balls to spin, they did not, but they did manage to put the spot light on them. We were all entertained by some interesting dancers from the other clubs. And our club closed out the evening!
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After enjoying our last day of skiing and our Leftover Party hosted by Mike and Johanna Peters, Steve Landry and John Kampe, we got to sleep in a bit, and enjoy our last yummy breakfast at the Forrest Suites before hopping on the bus back to Reno. We had some lovely Hispanic music during our breakfast
curtesy of _ill Gallion’s smart watch after it eavesdropped on our conversation about skiing in _hile. !nd
as we rolled out of Tahoe, we took in the several block long line of skiers waiting for shuttles due to the gondola shut down from high winds yet again. Although we had a line from the gondola back to the street behind the Forrest Suites on powder days, we never saw one that long!
Little did we know that was just the beginning our adventure to get back home. Once again those of us on the United flights were delayed getting out of Reno and missed our connecting flight in Denver. As a result we spent the night in the Gaylord Hotel and Conference center courtesy of United airlines. And of
course they set us up in a hotel that didn’t have any shuttle service to the airport (!) and were left trying
to figure out how to get 16 people in 1 Lyft car that showed up. But we managed to get there thanks to some folks requesting Ubers rides and finally got some sleep before heading out the next day to Chicago and then finally back to BWI. It was such a shame the last flight did not have screens so most of us missed the Super bowl. At this point many of us were glad the Ravens weren’t playing! The game was wrapping up as we walked to baggage claim at BWI. This little adventure definitely added a lot of experience to my trip leader skillset!
Overall I think it was a sensational trip, most of us got in lots of spectacular skiing and scenery, experienced life in Lake Tahoe for a week, and did I mention all the parties?!!! For many it was the first Blue Ridge Ski _ounsel trip. We will have to compare notes after next year’s Eastern P! Counsel trip to Steamboat. Thanks to all who went on the trip and hope to ski with you again next year!
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