Saturday, January 19, 2008

Ancora piu' neve - gita a Lake Tahoe

Finally I have some time to tell my dear readers about the visit to Lake Tahoe! As I mentioned in the previous post, last weekend Lucas and I and a group of friends went to Lake Tahoe, for two days of different sceneries and fun. Even though most of the group went for skiing, I cannot do so, and I decided to try snowshoeing. It was my first time, and finding out that I can do it without hurting my knees was a really great surprise. The weather was perfect, both days: it snowed some on Saturday, so the snow was fresh, and it was sunny for the rest of the time. There was a lot of snow and the sceneries were gorgeous. Here are some examples..
This is the beginning of the cross-country skiing and snowshoeing paths. They are separated from the downhill ski and skateboard paths, and not many people visit them. I loved the solitude and the silence that I enjoyed.
My main company were the trees, covered in snow.
In the afternoon, when the sun was shining, the ice started melting and dripping water on me, passing by.
Do you want to see my snowshoes? Here they are :)
Snowshoes help not sinking too much when walking on fresh snow, and give a lot of traction so one doesn't slide downhill. It was a lot of work, but very pleasurable, because of the scenarios, the silence, and the sense of achievement. The second day, Lucas was convinced by my descriptions to come with me, abandon the crowd, and hike all the way up on top of the mountain. We brought our lunch, and we snowshoed for many hours. The day was much brighter, and some of the snow had melted and recrystallized, giving rise to those wonderful snowflakes that I showed in the previous post.. here is a larger image of the field:
The snowflakes were just on the ground, shining dots of light everywhere.
An unforgettable view..
And here we are, on our way to the top: me
And Lucas:
And from the top, we could see the beautiful Lake Tahoe in the distance:
Also going back down with the lift was a lot of fun. The wind in your face, you can see a beautiful view.. and you're really up high!
I'll finish this series of pictures with a sunset on Lake Tahoe, which we got to see by chance, when we went to return the snowshoes in King's Beach. I loved the view of the beach covered in snow.
The whole weekend was a lot of fun, thanks to our friends' company. On Saturday night, Vardha and I cooked a huge Indian dinner, which included chappatis, rajma masala, paneer butter masala, aloo Gobi, and gaajar halva. As you'll see in the next posts, I'm starting to learn Indian cuisine, and this was a wonderful experience! Unfortunately I don't have pictures of it, so you'll have to trust me - it was delicious, and I especially liked the Paneer Masala. So, thanks to all the participants for the great experience, and I hope I gave a small idea of how beautiful Lake Tahoe is to all my readers!

4 comments:

elifleaf said...

Oh Marta, your pictures as lovely! I'm glad you had a good time snowshoeing, as I had skiing. It's nice to show the natural beauty of tahoe, which often gets lost amidst the resorts and large skiing establishments. Very fun trip! And thanks to you and Vardha for delicious food on Saturday night. ;-)

Andrea said...

Hi Marta,
Ciao! Sono un'americana a Milano! Stavo cercando come dire "collard greens" in italiano (perche sono vegetariana) e sono capitata su il tuo blog con un google key word search. Bello! Mi è piacuto tanto. Sono vissuta tanti anni in Indiana, Pennsylvania e Massachusetts dove spesso in inverno c'è la nevicata che copre tutto. Stupendo! Mi manca tanto questo aspetto degli States...la bellezza della natura. Ho girato gli States in 1994 coast to coast in macchina e ho fatto campeggio sul lago Tahoe l'estate. Poi ho visto come hai provato di fare i bagels. Ci sono solo 2 persone che conosco al mondo che hanno provato di farlo: te e mia sorella! E' un po' che pensavo di lanciarmi in questa impresa! Complimenti. Purtroppo ho la sfortuna di chiamarmi Andrea in un paese dove Andrea è un nome da maschio!
Vivo in Italia dal 1998 e ho 10 anni più di te...ho due bimbe nate qua. Il mio parnter è italiano - ci siamo conosciuti a grad school a Purdue. Pensa che quando sono venuta vivere qua non parlavo una parola di italiano. I look forward to further perusing your site in future. Keep it updated! Hey who knows maybe one day I will take the plunge and start a blog! Non so come contattarti e non voglio lasciare mio email sul tuo sito a vista di tutti. Tornerò a laciarti un altro messaggio un'altra volta!
A presto
Andrea Pigey

Gretchen Noelle said...

Oh how this makes me miss Tahoe!!! :(

chemcookit said...

Elif - thanks! The trip was a lot of fun indeed.

Andrea - grazie mille per il commento! Mi fa moltissimo piacere conoscerti. Innanzitutto, complimenti per il tuo Italiano! Scrivi benissimo. Se vuoi mandarmi un email, puoi usare l'indirizzo che ho messo per chi mi manda entries per il mio blog event: chemcookit AT gmail DOT com.
Sai che ho scoperto che Andrea sta diventando un nome per bambine anche in Italia? La figlia di un mio amico si chiama cosi', e sono tutti Italiani.... ormai anche l'Italia si internazionalizza :)
In effetti la natura negli States e' meravigliosa. Dell'Italia, mi mancano (oltre che famiglia e amici) le piccole cittadine, tutte con 'un'anima', i mercatini, la mozzarella :)
Spero di rivederti su queste pagine.. a presto!!

Gretchen - thanks for stopping by, and I'm glad you liked the photos.. hopefully not too much nostalgia! :)