Sorry to anyone who finds snow or snowboarding incredibly boring, just to warn you - we go on, and on, and on about the snow in this one, hope you find it amusing all the same! Prizes to those who correctly send in the number of times the word 'snow' is mentioned in this post 
After the beautiful snowy drive up to Lake Tahoe we checked into our motel directly opposite the gondola - Quality! We arrived 3 days earlier than we originally planned so that means a full 3 weeks on the slopes, yup! That's 3 weeks folks - the longest snowboarding holiday we have ever had!
The Heavenly village sits on the California/Nevada border and although a huge ski area, the town is quite sleepy. One thing you notice is the four massive casino hotels sitting just across the stateline in Nevada. Here you can gamble 24 hours a day as well as eat and drink all night.
Our first day on the mountain was quite chilled; we didn't want to go too crazy as we hadn't been boarding for a year. Even so, Zaida was linking turns just like last year on the very first run, which was a relief. She took a guided lesson in the afternoon to get her back into the swing of things and actually ended up being top of the class ;o) This gave Chris a chance to explore the mountain a bit and suss out the best places to board for the next couple of days. Due to the low cloud cover when we arrived we still hadn't got a good idea of the area or views, as visibility was pretty poor.
The main gondola lift takes you to an elevation of 10,000 feet and on a clear day you have fantastic views of the lake on the Californian side and the desert on the Nevada side. It wasn't until the 2nd day that the skies cleared and we saw the amazing vista in front of the backdrop of snowy mountains. It really is a sight to be seen and must be the best resort we have been to for views.
In addition to the fantastic landscape there are plenty of options for all levels of skiers/borders here. Loads of wide cruisey blues, plenty of steep blacks and no end of perfectly spaced trees to ride between. That coupled with the phenomenal amount of snowfall here means plenty of good riding. In fact we reckon that 3 out of 4 days spent here have been powder days! Unbelievable Amazing!! Fantastic!!! .....Ahhhh where was I?? Ah yes....
We arrived on a weekend in Tahoe and nothing prepared us for how busy it would get with people coming from the surrounding areas to take advantage of the recent snow dump (oh the joys of living near a mountain, lucky people). The resort had over 17,000 people visit that day, and believe us that is a lot of people trying to get down a slope. Although the 'Après Ski' is a bit average, we have been managing - just! One definite problem is finding somewhere to eat at the weekends - this place gets mobbed and there just aren't enough tables to go around. Our first Saturday we couldn't get a table anywhere and went hungry - only made that mistake once!!
After the rather traumatic Saturday snow rush we had a chilled day as we had to move hotels (bit of a pain as we now have loads of bags). Our new hotel was 'The Block'- the world’s first snowboarder hotel! We had both been really looking forward to staying here, it sounds great on paper and they have a very slick website, unfortunately the reality is that the block is a rather tired old motel albeit with flat panel TVs and playstations in the rooms. Being greeted with a "Sup duude" instead of "Morning sir" by the staff is all very well but after staying there three days and having the heating fail 4 times and waking up to no hot water on two consecutive mornings we decided to cut our losses and move, this time to a much nicer (and cheaper!) motel about 10 minutes walk from the gondola, just far enough to warm those legs up in the morning!
After a couple of days on the mountain and deciding that Zaida had improved on her board we went shopping for Zaida's very own snowboard, we ended up with a wicked girlie Nidecker board with a misprint (which made it a bargain). The rest of that afternoon Chris was busy setting up Zaida's board in the hotel room when there was a knock on our door. Chris got the biggest surprise when he opened the door to the one and only Darren Read ('Pikey Read' in some circles 'Dogger Read' in others and historically known as 'The NOID') was stood there with his buddy Andrew. Zaida and Darren had been planning this surprise for months, and considering her lack of ability to keep secrets she did pretty well. Chris was so surprised he was literally lost for words and quite freaked out for a couple of minutes!! Not only were Darren and Andrew in town but we also found out that Will Duke (a friend from London) was DJ-ing in Tahoe for the whole of March, and in our second week Jody and Claude were here so we now had a little posse - home from home, 'Après Ski' issues solved, ta-daaaaa!
Poor Darren bore the brunt of everyone’s humor for gate crashing someone else’s honeymoon, Darren - we'll get you back someday....No seriously it was great having you here!
After our first weekend getting our snowboarding legs back, Zaida booked herself into a 3-day ladies only snowboard school. She was the only woman signed up so had 1-on-1 tuition the entire 3 days which was a right result. The instructor really pushed her and she has now proudly ridden through the trees and even been down diamond black runs! With Zaida in school for 3 days it was a perfect opportunity for Chris to 'rip it up' with the boys!! Seriously, Chris has never seen snow like it. Unbelievable blah blah.... sorry I said that already. Anyways - big fun was had by all!
After a few days in Tahoe listening to all the locals raving about the conditions it was apparent they were unseasonably excellent, one newspaper headline stating some of the best seen in 5 years. A really huge storm hit during our 2nd week and Chris and Darren were out riding in it, wicked fun! It was snowing so hard that by the time you had made one fresh track run and ridden back up on the chairlift the tracks you left had been filled back in and it was fresh tracks all over again. I know it sounds like exaggeration but it's not. Seriously. The following morning there was 3 to 5 feet of fresh powder depending on location! We have never seen so much snow, which meant powder conditions even on the main slopes. When Zaida fell over you couldn't even see her it was so deep!
Darren and Andrew were due to leave literally the day after the big dump of snow and after a few phone calls to airlines and hotels Darren canceled his flight to Vail in favour of staying in Tahoe with us for a few more days. A wise and quite 'un-pikey-like' decision Pikey Read!
After purchasing some new 'rad' snowboarding gear to go with Zaida's gnarly board, new extreme tree riding by Zaida was achieved -it's amazing what a bit of shopping does for girls! By then end of the holiday the goal to keep up with Chris has almost been achieved, provided he doesn't step on the gas too much.
So there you go... slide, slide, slippidy, slide forgot about our worries and our 9-to-5's. Snow, snow, blah, blah sorry if ya found this one boring but we had awesome fun ripping it up dude.
Next stop Vegas!!