Originally the plan was to only spend Memorial Day weekend up here, but the weather was too darn nice to head back to the San Francisco fog. So I decided to stick around the whole week. A good portion of this week was spent in the saddle. Some where in the neighborhood of 10 hours…

[find more photos here...]

The big bike ride was on Wednesday when I headed out on my own to do Luther Pass – Kingsbury Grade Loop. Apparently this typically doesn’t include Diamond Valley road, but I threw it in there for kicks. Well I felt really good for the first 3 hours of the ride. At that point I was at the base of Kingsbury Grade and had only about 12 miles to go to get back to Christopher’s house. It started off good, just a typical slow and steady climb. Right about 30 minutes into the climb I started to notice my heart rate peg to a steady 170-175 bpm. This is not good I tried to control it but couldn’t get it below 170. After a few minutes of this, I decide to take a breather to bring my HR back down to Earth.

The issue was I started to overheat and was running low on water. Kingsbury not like other passes out here, this road is completely exposed to the sun. The higher I climbed the hotter it got, by the time I was only 1000 feet from the top my watch said it was 92F. At this point I had only a few squirts of water left and I hit a wall. So it took a little longer to complete the climb. The whole climb took 80 minutes in total. I’m not going to make the record books with that one, but I made it none the less…

All in all the ride took me 4:38, where 3:57 of that was actually riding. Total distance was 58.04 miles with 4560′ of elevation. Not too shabby.

The real fun was on Saturday when Christopher and I went out to climb Monitor Pass. That climb was nice and long, but so worth it. That had to be one of best descents I have ridden ever. I clocked 50mph on my bike! Talk about a serious rush. Seeing the ground fly by you at that speed is a great way to get the adrenaline pumping. I’m pretty sure you could clearly hear us yelling “YaHooooooo!!!” a few passes over.

Actually going 110mph in Christopher’s Porsche the other night was rather thrilling as well. But I think the words coming out of my mouth were more along the lines of, “HOLY CRAP!!!”

Well back to the city tonight. I’m actually looking forward to getting back to the fog. This sunny and 80 degree weather is for the birds.

Now playing: Arcade Fire – No Cars Go – Neon Bible

Well it has been snowing all weekend. This morning I woke up to bluebird skys and had to hit the slopes. I was able to put in 4 1/2 hours before my legs said enough. I guess that’s what happens after skiing 4 days out of the past 5.

Here are more photos from today’s trip…

Now playing: Karsh Kale – Analog Mood Swings – Liberation

I drove up to Tahoe last night, the storm turned out to be hanging over Echo Summit. I got stuck on HWY 50 for about 2 hours waiting for the guys to perform some avalanche safety. Meaning they were blasting out the snow on the pass, so I just chilled in my car and too a nap until the pass opened back up. It was probably some of the crappiest driving conditions I have seen to date, but made the fresh tracks we got this morning well worth it.

We’ll be heading out for a full day of skiing tomorrow and I’ll try to get some better pictures of Baus shredding on his telemark skis…

Now Playing – The Black Keys – Set you free – Thickfreakness

I’ll be heading out for my first day on the slopes. This winter has not been all that great for skiing, in past years I would have had my pass payed for twice by now.

Anyway a storm came through Tahoe on Thursday and dropped around 16″ of snow. So there should be enough out there now to play in the trees a bit.

I’ll have my point and shoot on me today. Now I just have to remind myself to stop for a moment or two from the fun and take a few choice shots.

Now playing: Band of Horses – Monsters – Everything All The Time

Update: It was a super nice day out. Spending 6 hours on the mountain is just my idea of a great day. The lift lines were a bit crowded, but that’s to be expected when 1/4 of the mountain is still closed. I didn’t take the camera out until my last run, so the photos are sort of crappy. You can see how thin the snow cover is, just take a look at one my favorite tree line runs way too many exposed rocks to even think about heading down there… [more photos]

Christopher and I headed out this afternoon on a hike to work off our prior days gluttony. We headed over to Horsetail Falls, but didn’t actually make our way to the falls. Instead we made a detour to see if we could climb up to the summit of a steep cliff area.

Well we were not too far from the ridge before we thought it was probably best to turn back before one of us fell a few hundred feet to our death. (it got super steep rather fast toward the top)

Here’s a image of our elevation gain on the hike. And of course some stunning photos by yours truly…

Now playing: Amon Tobin – Triple Science – Out From Out Where