California Weekend

It being a three-day weekend and a storm was moving in for Saturday, the question became how could Jesse and I could enjoy the fresh powder yet avoid the holiday weekend traffic. Our solution was to head up Sunday morning and leave that afternoon except head west instead of back to the Bay Area. Strangely enough it seemed that everyone else had the same idea. Traffic was pretty bad going up but we managed to get to Sugarbowl and on the slopes by 10:30 or 11:00am. The powder was pretty well tracked by the time we got on the mountain but we managed to get some fresh lines through the trees on our first run. It had been so long since I last snowboarded in powder that I didn't fair very well and kept getting stuck. But after a few runs I had my snow legs back and we thoroughly exhausted ourselves by the end of the day.

From there we took off with plans to head west on Highway 20 except that we had to deal with more traffic just getting out of there. It took us an hour to go 16 miles, mostly due to what turned out to be an overturned SUV. Once we were on Highway 20 it was clear sailing through places like Grass Valley, Marysville, and Yuba City. We were headed to Harbin Hot Springs just outside of Middletown near Clear Lake. It was a long drive after a full day of snowboarding but it was worth it to be able soak in the open pools under a full moon. After that it was a struggle just to keep the eyes open and I slept well that night.

In the morning I awoke and there was the sound of clucking outside. It was a flock of wild turkeys passing right by the tents on a morning stroll. We ate breakfast and then went back to the pools for another soak before driving out to Cobb Mountain for a mountain bike ride. It was so cold, though, that we only managed a 9-mile loop on some spectacular single-track. It must have been in the low 40s and I was definitely not dressed for it. My body stayed heated from the pedaling but my fingers were so cold and they eventually went numb and then my toes became painfully cold. The thing that kept me going was knowing I could go back and soak in the pools to heat myself back up. After our third soaking we took a very satisfying and well-deserved nap before heading home.