Ireland 43 England 13

I just watched Ireland play us off the park at rugby. We can't even complain that the crowd was disrespectful at the new venue. We was well and truly gubbed!

USA Trip - day 20, 14th & 15th February

Well, the return to Aberdeen went pretty smoothly. I returned the car OK and there were no unexpected surcharges. We checked in with United Airlines very efficiently, and went to have some breakfast.

Blogging at Asilomar

I phoned mum and dad to congratulate them on their wedding anniversary today. Ah, I hear you say, they got married on Valentine's Day! All's well at home, which is good to hear.

I then had one of those moments I realised something stupid I had done. I'd bought a nice bottle of wine to take back, and put it in my hand luggage. Of course, they are not allowing you to take unchecked liquids onto flights and there would be no alternative, but to surrender the bottle at security. Stoopid stoopid stoopid. The cleaner in the restaurant was very grateful for the free bottle of wine.

Well, so much for the sham of security. There was no exit scan of my fingerprints or my eyes. No customs to check on what I may have imported, and the only emigration control was done by the staff from United Airlines. Hmmm.

It was a long flight, in which the only relief from the child from hell came from in-flight movies. Any attempts by parents to control wayward child brought on ear splitting shrieks (similar in frequency and effect to a dentist's drill). I enjoyed The Prestige (Scarlet Wotsername), The Fastest Indian (Anthony Hopkins) and what I saw of Volver (Penelope Cruz).

We had a reasonably short turnaround at Heathrow, in which I had another "Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid" moment when I realised that we had to try and take the duty free we'd bought in San Francisco through security for the Aberdeen flight. This time, we felt there was too much to lose, so we wrapped the bottles in our coats and checked another bag into hold luggage. The pace seemed like 90mph at Heathrow. It didn't matter where I stepped or stood, someone seemed always to be rushing to get past me. Maybe I was dozy and jet-lagged, but I don't think so. The flight to Aberdeen had another child from hell. George's brother Stuart met us at the airport (which was freezing, especially with our outer coats in the hold luggage) and kindly took me home.

Everything was fine at home, no problems, and Ben and Hannah had kindly taken mail through to the kitchen. Jacko from next door brought round a box of wine which had been delivered while I was away. Something to quell the post-holiday blues.

USA trip, day 20 - 13th February

I really don't want to leave here. There are deer grasing outside the room and a Dark-eyed Junco singing its heart out. Its so peaceful among the pines. I could easily get used to this.

Breakfasted, blogged then picked up Linda to return to San Francisco with a rather large detour via the Panoche Valley. We got there with assistance and occasional hindrance from Homer Simpson. The route there took us through rough chapparal habitat. We saw Nuttall's Woodpecker, Oak Titmouse, Spotted Towhee, Western and Mountain Bluebirds and Yellow-billed Magpie, among plenty of other birds. Possibly the best thing we saw was a pair of Acorn Woodpeckers next to their store tree. The bark was riddled with hundreds of holes, most of which had a single acorn inside. The woodpeckers were busy tending their harvest and adding new acorns to the stash.

The Panoche Valley proper was a flat plain with dry rough grassland, and apparently home to a substantial flock of Mountain Plovers. They are supposed to be here all winter, but the last report was back in December. We tried this and a number of potential places with no luck. There were numerous Savannah Sparrows all along the fence lines, acting for all the world like Meadow Pipits. Say's Phoebe seemed to be reasonably common too. We saw a cracking Golden Eagle next to the road which took off and flew over our heads. This signalled the time to break off and head up to San Francisco.

We dropped Linda off at her hotel, but not before I drove the wrong way up a one-way street. Oops. Actually, I was surprised by how the chaos I caused seemed to cause so little animosity. We checked into a Holiday Inn near Fisherman's Wharf, found an Italian Restaurant for a meal, then watched a film (Black Dahlia).

USA trip, day 19 - 12th February

After breakfast, went to The Nature Conservancy’s check-in to see if Malcolm Hodges was attending the conference. One of the women knew Mal, but confirmed he wouldn’t be coming. Oh well, worth a try. While blogging, I was sat near to one of their directors (D Robertson - I read it on his name badge) who was having loud phone conversations with members of the board, coaching their contribution to the next board meeting.

We took a slow drive down the coast, through Carmel (stopping at a couple of birding sites) eventually to Big Sur. We went for a walk in the Andrew Molera State Park, getting as far as the beach, but unable to reach it to walk on. The main interest here was hummingbirds. We saw a glorious male Allen’s Hummingbird which must have just arrived, and a Anna’s Hummingbird which was doing it’s huge J-shaped display flight. Repeatedly, it flew vertically into the air, like a Harrier jet, then plummeted downward before curving round and upwards, giving a short “peep” call at the bottom of the “J”. I don’t know how they find enough energy to live at this time of year, let alone do this display flight sequence.

The woods were full of wintering warblers, mainly Yellow-rumped with a few Townsend’s and lots of Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Other additions to the trip list here were California Towhee, American Robin and some Wrentits.

This stretch of coast is famed for its scenery. Almost as beautiful as the west coast of Scotland I’d say. There are a lot of big, exclusive houses with “fuck off” signs posted all around. We drove through Carmel, expecting to see Clint Eastwood wandering about town. It was full of large houses with ocean views and lots of artistic shops. The paintings on offer in art shops are a bit in your face for my liking. There didn’t seem to be anything subtle in the way of artistic expression.

On the beach at Carmel, an excessively blonde woman was having her photos taken by a dirty old man. She was getting into it, pulling pose after pose for the camera. I don’t know who was getting what out of this photo shoot, but I guess it is to be expected in a part of the world where appearance is everything.

We got back to our sanctuary at Asilomar in the late afternoon. I’m sitting here writing this on the balcony of the room in fading light, listening to the ocean waves washing over the beach. The only thing missing right now is a large gin and tonic.

Had an excellent meal at a restaurant called The Fishwife. Excellent food, and a waitress who certainly knew how to describe the food in a gravely east coast accent.

USA trip, day 18 - 11th February

We got up frighteningly early to go down to Monterey fish dock to join an all-day pelagic trip. Monterey Bay contains a deep underwater canyon, which means cetaceans and seabirds typical of these very deep waters pass close inshore. A whole industry has sprung up around showing these to the public. Our trip was a specialist seabirding trip, so leaders were throwing bits of anchovy and popcorn overboard to attract a big gull flock, and hopefully other goodies. There were a few folks from the conference on the trip, including some of the leaders, mixed with some birders, including some Brits.

It was quite a good trip in the end, although a long day battling against the swell and movement of the boat. There were a few folks making their own contribution to the food going over the side for the gulls. I saw two new cetacean species – Grey Whale and beautiful Dall’s Porpoise along with Risso’s Dolphins, a lonely White-sided Dolphin and a Humpback Whale at the end. Of the seabirds, Short-tailed Shearwater, Pink-footed Shearwater and Thayer’s Gull were new for me, and there were also lots of Common Murres/Guillemots, Kittiwakes, Ancient Murrelets, Rhinocerous Auklets, a few Sooty Shearwaters and Black-footed Albatross. One of the albatrosses was ringed. Such is the power of modern digital photography, within minutes, Steve Howell got a photo, blew it up to zoom right in on the ring, and the details logged of the bird, probably ringed as a chick about 20 years ago on Tern Island in the mid-Pacific. A lot of these guys use digital SLR cameras with about 300 – 400mm lenses with image stabilisation. They then fire off about 10 shots in a rapid burst, and pick one or two of these, deleting the others.

I spoke a bit to Peter Pyle, who co-ordinates the at sea surveys for US Fish and Wildlife. He was sufficiently impressed with my talk that he’s considering changing their whole programme to adopt these standards. I think it was their group I felt had furthest to go to catch up with other groups. Maybe standardisation here is not going to be such a big effort.

Sandy Bartle and Peter Pyle

After getting off the boat, George and Linda wanted to do a bit of present shopping. I scanned around the harbour and managed to pick out two Harlequin Ducks we’d been looking for, without success, from the boat. They were a pair, and the adult male was a wee beauty, like a small child had been given a full palette of paints to colour in a drawing. A Townsend’s Warbler flew into a tree in the parking lot to seal off a really good day.

When we got back to Asilomar, there was another conference checking in from the American Nature Conservancy. I wonder if Malcolm Hodges is at the conference. Fell asleep within minutes of getting back to the room in spite of a beautiful sunset.

USA trip, day 17 - 10th February

Mike Harris did this morning’s one-hour plenary session on “Common Murres” and proceeded to spend much of his time struggling not to call them Guillemots. As ever, Mike was lucid and interesting to listen to, his slides easy and quick to understand. During the talk, Rik texted me to inform me of the final score in which Scotland beat Wales in the rugby (Mike is an avid Wales rugby fan – in his vast collection and library of bird books at home is one non-bird book – Barry John’s autobiography).

After this, I took a bit of a break and did some birding with George along the shore towards Point Pinos. One of the first things we saw was a Belted Kingfisher among the rock pools. In the bays were a few Sea Otters, some wrapping themselves in kelp so they didn’t drift away while trying to sleep. They are the cutest creatures on earth, and possibly they know it. There were some Western Sandpipers feeding along the shoreline. I tried to have a go at separating them all from Semipalmated Sandpiper, to which they are almost identical. Not easy, as they seemed to lack the fine breast streaks typical of this species at this time of year. I could just about see that the bill tips were too fine for the latter species though. Just offshore were a couple of winter adult Rhinocerous Auklets. Difficult to see, but the bill was too long to be Cassin’s Auklet, and also the latter species suffered a huge crash in the last couple of years, so is very difficult to see in their typically offshore habitat. On the way back to the room at Asilomar, we saw a Hermit Thrush next to the road.

After lunch, I went to a few more talks and got chatting to Doug Forsell, who was one of the original Alaska seabirds-at-sea crew. He’s nearing retirement and wants to sell the house, buy a boat and use it to travel the world. I can understand that. It chucked it down with rain in the afternoon.
There was a Mexican banquet in the evening, which served great food, followed by awards for best student talk and poster and two awards – one for outstanding achievement to Ed Melvin, who has done so much work to get fishermen to change their practices to stop mortality of seabirds in gill nets, and now doing the same thing for longline fishing. Quite humbling really. The lifetime achievement award went to Mike Harris. Overall, the whole awards thing went on a bit long as rather too many people seemed to want to get in on the act. As soon as this was over, the tables were cleared and a latino band played some great music, and lots of people were up dancing. What an excellent end to the conference.

USA trip, day 16 - 9th February

I skipped the plenary session today. It was a public debate between two persons who sit on the opposite side of the fence on whether Brown Pelicans should be declassified as an endangered species. This was experimental as something to do at a PSG conference. Nobody seemed to be talking about it afterwards, so I wonder if it worked out OK.

I did some emailing etc and went through my talk again. Going back to the meeting rooms, I hit a bit of a purple patch with the local birds. This included Bushtits (just like Long-tailed Tits back home), a Downy Woodpecker, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Pine Siskin, a couple of Western Scrub Jays and a target species for me, Townsends Warbler! There was also a Say's Phoebe in the grounds, though it didn't look much like the book illustrations.

My talk went well, although if I'd had 20 minutes, I'd have missed out fewer important facts. Linda's talk went well, and attracted quite a bit of interest. She was nervous, although I only knew because she told me so.

At the end of the final session on "seabirds at sea" methods, there was a spontanious discussion about survey methods from ships. There are a lot of different methods being used in the Pacific, and while people want to standardise, they are reluctant to let go of their old methods. We're so lucky to have standardised our methods in Europe before too many projects started.

It's strange at these conferences. Once you've given a talk to a group you don't know well, all the doors suddenly open. I guess its a bit like an "ice-breaker".

George spent the day in Monterey, including a morning at the aquarium. It sounds a truly amazing place.

USA trip, day 15 - 7th February

The conference started full swing. After introductions, there was a plenary session from Henri Weimerskirch which was an intense presentation of data comparing forganing strategies of seabird species between the tropics and temperate zones. It was a bit of a shock for me to go from thinking about edging skis to lots of detailed technical information. His was one of a number of papers describing sexy work derived from attachments of data loggers, satellite tags and other gizmos. One speaker in the session questioned how many people are doing the basics of checking the impacts of the devices on the seabirds themselves. Not many is the unfortunate answer.

I got to see a bit of the grounds and took a look at the beach (George had taken a walk along the beach during the day). There were a few waders on the rocks, including Surfbirds, Black Turnstone, Glaucous-winged Gull. The grounds had a number of Acorn Woodpeckers flying about, squawking like parakeets. Some deer, presumably Mule Deer, which seemed very tame, and a Red-shouldered Hawk which seemed oblivious to people watching it, perhaps enjoying the attention.

I didn’t join the social events in the evening, and instead went through my talk a couple of times in preparation for tomorrow.

USA trip, day 14 - 6th February

We got up to the shock of wet roads and pavements. Does that mean it’s been snowing in the High Sierras? We were too late after dawn for Burrowing Owls, so gave them a miss (sorry Nancy).

We drove around the Yolo farmlands looking at the many birds of prey perched on telegraph posts or hunting over fields. These were White-tailed Kites, Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels with the bonus of a Cooper’s Hawk. We went to the spot where apparently Mountain Plovers occur regularly each winter. After searching lots of ploughed fields we gave up. The only other species of interest were a couple of Golden-crowned Sparrows, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (without a ruby crown) and some Yellow-billed Magpies.

At midday, we broke off to drive into San Francisco where we were to meet Linda Wilson, a work colleague who is also going to the Pacific Seabird Group Annual Meeting. We found ourselves ahead of schedule for our rendezvous time, so made a quick stop near Oakland Marina to look at birds in San Francisco Bay. There were some birds of interest there, including Clark’s Grebe, Slavonian (Horned) Grebe, Greater Scaup, Forster’s Tern, American Wigeon, Bufflehead and Redhead.

We picked up Linda from her hotel near Union Square, and drove down Highway 1 to Monterey. It drizzled for most of the journey south, but in spite of that, the coastline was beautiful. We also drove past a number of sites we birded in during our last visit to the region in 2003 (or was it 2002?). We arrived at the conference centre at Asilomar, which is on the headland to the west of Monterey. It consists of a number of timber buildings all set in grounds with Monterey Pines set back from a beach. The layout was a b it confusing in the dark, but we managed to find where we went for the evening meal, and to catch a coach for an evening social at world-famous Monterey Aquarium.

This was a great venue for a social event. There are a number of imaginatively presented tanks containing various fish and jellyfish. The jellies, in particular, were beautifully illuminated to bring out the beauty of these creatures. Pride of place went to a huge tank with Yellow-finned Tuna, Hammerhead Sharks and Ocean Sunfish. I kept looking at a join in the glass and hoped it wouldn’t suddenly burst open, I’m sure the fish would have been thinking the same thing.

USA trip, day 14 - 6th February

After checking out from the Montbleu, we set off at 10:30 to drive to Sacramento through the beautifully scenic Sierra Mountains. About 2 hours later, we arrived at the Vic Fazio Yollo Wetland Preserve, adjacent to the Interstate 80 Sacramento by-pass. This is a huge restored wetland created from flooded farmland. Most of the preserve is available to hunters during part of the winter, but that season had now finished. Visitors can drive around a gravel track around a small part of the site at any time of year.

This place was fantastic with tens of thousands of waterfowl, mainly American Coots, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Ducks, Buffleheads, Cinnamon Teal and Green-winged Teal. We notched up a reasonable list of species during the afternoon, and I won’t bore people with a full list. The key species we saw were American Bittern (cracking close views – the book describes them as ponderous, but I’d say that conveys too much urgency); a stunning Red-shouldered Hawk which seemed oblivious to us watching it from the car; several Violet Green Swallows; two Golden-crowned Sparrows among the many White-crowned, Savannah and Song Sparrows; American Pipits; Greater Yellowlegs; American White Pelican; Tricolored Blackbird; several Northern Harriers hunting incredibly close to the track; Black Phoebes and Yellow-rumped Warblers (“Budder-burts”) everywhere. The reserve is renowned for its wintering geese, but t-shirt weather for us meant geese wintering further north.

As the sun started to set and we made our way out of the reserve (we could easily have spent a lot longer there), swarms of Brewers Blackbirds were streaming across the wetland, obviously to some huge, no doubt very noisy and smelly mass roost. It was an awesome sight.

We went into Davis to find a motel. We ate at the Caffe Italia. Several times during this trip, I have thought of American friends and birds I have seen with them, or places I know they have visited. UC Davis is where Nancy Harrison studied for her Doctorate. I remember her telling me about nearby Burrowing Owls, and I hope to see them tomorrow morning in the Yolo farmlands.

USA trip, day 13 - 5th February

Our final day of skiing. Not quite perfect blue skies, but still plenty of sun. We got to the lift reasonably early again, seeing some Steller's Jays from the car on the way.

It's a testament to Heavenly, that most of the pistes are looking good. They've been making snow overnight here (from their own reservoirs) and grooming the slopes ready for the next morning. They've had to close off more of the expert skier slopes through lack of snow. We slowed down on the skiing mid morning as the spring conditions turned snow to slush, and gave up by midday.

What do I think of skiing at Heavenly? I think it's great, and I know that a lot of the resorts around here have suffered far more from the warm and dry conditions. It would have been good to have had more difficult trails to progress to, but that wasn't possible. I'd like to come back, and I'd stay at the Montbleu again.

We took our skis back to George's Ski Hire. I was a bit concerned because I'd gone over a few unmarked rocks and scratched the underside of the skis quite badly in places. No problem at all. Compare this to Banff, where they have charged me before now for leaving small scratches on skis. So full marks to George's Ski Hire for their excellent service.

We're busy packing this afternoon, ready to set off tomorrow. We'll probably eat in Heavenly Village tonight. The plan is to go to some of the wetlands and farmlands around Sacramento tomorrow, where we hope to see a lot of geese, birds of prey, and who knows maybe some wintering Mountain Plovers. Pleeeeze!

George has been farting non-stop since we got back - no idea what he's been eating. Went down to the swimming pool and hot tub (maybe George could come in use there) to relax before going out. A woman came up to us and asked if George and I were twins. WHAT ??!!

USA trip, day 12 - 4th February

Had a great meal at the hotel's main restaurant Ciero. Not cheap, but great food.
Got to the slopes early this morning, and it was well worth the effort. The chairlifts from the Nevada side start earlier than those from California side, so we managed to get to some of the better trails before the crowds arrived. The pistes were nice and smooth and we could throw ourselves about and get some speed up. Fab. After 10 a.m , we took a break, did a couple of runs, then a rather long break. It was really warm today and people were basking in the sunshine in t-shirts.

Skied a bit more, but the snow was turning into slush in places, and there were a lot of nasty ice patches to negotiate, so we returned to base and went back to the hotel.

We decided to go to find a Superbowl party. There's a big sports bar here, so we figured this is where it would be at. What a disappointment, there were a few folks watching the big screens, but they were playing poker on machines on the bartop at the same time. George mentioned how rarely he'd heard anyone swearing after deciding to go back to the room. Later, a few Chicago Bears fans came to the bar, and they made up for the lack of swearing we'd heard so far. One guy (who could get a part-time job as a fog horn if need be) kept yelling at the Chicago quarterback "You Suck", sounding more like something out of Beavis and Butthead (without the laugh). After the game was over I returned to the room past a stream of disgruntled Chicago fans streaming from the theatre where you could hear lots of cheering Indianapolis fans - so that's where the party was!

USA trip, day 11 - 3rd February

Clear blue skies again! George thinks a Blog is something you would find up your nose.

We did the usual ski runs, and being the weekend, the slopes were very crowded and soon got icy. One of the small pleasures of skiing is sharing a chair lift with other skiers and riders. Sometimes it's difficult to get more than a grunt out of your fellow passengers, but others can be quite chatty. A guy today had been to the island of Islay a couple of years ago and had sampled and clearly enjoyed a lot of the whiskies there. He had left his two children at the ski school for the day so was now off the leash and going skiing in all the places he enjoyed.


We stopped again again at midday and went birding in the afternoon. Rik kindly texted through the score from the Calcutta Cup - how sweet to avenge our defeat of last year. It's the day before the Superbowl and that's all you hear about at the moment.


We went to somewhere called Fallen Leaf Lake in the afternoon. We'd tried and failed to find it in fading light on our day off. It was worth the walk and beautiful. We saw a small family party of Oregon Juncos and I pished in some cracking Red-breasted Nuthatches - it's remarkable how birds in N. America respond to this noise. The nuthatch sat on an exposed branch, calling just like a Zebra Finch at me and tapping on the wood.



The weather forecast tonight said the weather system is going to break down and allow snow showers though to the Sierra Nevada, and probably high winds on the coast - that threaten the pelagic birding trip we've booked out of Monterey next Sunday.

USA trip, day 10 - 2nd February

Once more we woke to clear blue skies. I strapped up my wrist and we headed for the slopes.

We did our favourite runs and again did the Little Dipper black run. They have been making snow here and the moguls (bumps) are getting higher, and more difficult to negotiate. Also, some of the better trails are starting to wear a bit thin in places; a symptom of the sunny days we're experiencing here. Also, a lot of the trails are icy, as the groomed surface gets scraped off during the day.

A lot of the trails here are closed - mostly blacks and double blacks - on account of the poor snow cover. The main trails still open are only being kept open thanks to the snow-making facilities here. But even these are deteriorating. All of the west coast USA ski resorts have been hit in the same way - a high pressure and low pressure system are blocking storms off from the Pacific. Instead, these storms are hitting further north and giving resorts, such as Whistler in Canadian, record snow falls. Virtually no snow has fallen around Tahoe this year.

After a leisurely lunch and pint at the base lodge, we returned to the hotel early, and took a look around the Heavenly resort near the hotel. Not much to say, except that the shops here are a bit more upmarket, whereas the others on the California side seem only to sell trashy tourist tat and t-shirts.

The film for tonight was The Return, featuring Sarah Michelle-Gellar. OK.

USA trip, day 9 - 1st February

We both seem to have shaken off our bug. Woke again to yet another perfect blue sky. We skied most of the resort today and did the Little Dipper mogul field twice – I fell properly today on one of those runs, then again when I lost concentration in an icy area on one of the moderate difficulty trails. It wasn’t until later I realised I sprained my wrist during the fall – bloody sore! And any comments referring to my sex life will be edited! We had lunch at a restaurant that overlooks the Gunbarrel trail and Lake Tahoe – pretty spectacular!

We did a bit more shopping – George to get some Van Heusen shirts at ridiculously cheap prices, and me to get a supporting bandage for my wrist.

This evening’s film was A Good Year with Albert Finney and Russell Crowe – worth seeing.

USA trip, day 8 - 31st January

Another day of clear blue skies and there is still no new snow to replenish the pistes. George had a bad night, complaining of breathlessness – sounds familiar. I’m feeling a bit better today. Not much to say about the skiing, except that we did the fully fledged mogul field of Little Dipper, again somewhat gracelessly. We both fell today. Mine was more of a topple, and George lost his ski edge on an ice sheet at the end of the day. It had to happen sooner or later.

We watched The Illusionist for our film this evening – quite entertaining.

USA trip, day 7 - 30th January

We decided to take a day off. I was feeling off colour again (over the last couple of days, I’ve found myself gasping for breath – I’m pretty sure I picked up a chest infection from the guy sat next to me on the plane from Chicago). The lift passes for the ski areas only cover 10 of the 11 days we’re here; more cloud is forecast for today, so we might as well make it today. Amazingly, neither of us has fallen over when skiing, yet.

We drove a short distance around the lake, and away from the sprawl of South Lake Tahoe. It takes forever to drive from one end of town to the other, and is an appalling example of unregulated development in a beauty spot. I guess we can start to look forward to this if, as promised, the UK government opts to relax planning restrictions in greenbelt areas.

We parked the car off the main road near a recreational area called Baldwin Beach, and walked through the trees to the lake shore. In one area, where I could here a distant bird flock, I managed to pish in a considerable flock of birds. It was made up mostly of Pygmy Nuthatches, a couple of Down Woodpeckers, Mountain Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren, Bushtits and I could hear, but not see, a Red-breasted Nuthatch.

The lake shore was deserted of people and beautiful in the calm cloudless sky (so much for the weather forecast). I had hoped to see Bald Eagles, which congregate near here in winter apparently, but had no luck. We did see a beautiful drake Hooded Merganser on the lake, along with Buffleheads, a couple of Common Goldeneyes, and the inevitable California Gulls.

After this, we went to a small shopping mall full of factory outlets. There were some real bargains there, especially with the pound so strong against the dollar. We returned via a supermarket – it doesn’t matter where I am in the world, I love to see the food that people buy. However, we were there for much more important reasons – our gin stocks were getting dangerously low back in the hotel room.

George was feeling under the weather in the evening, so I got a meal to go for the room, and we watched a subscription film again – Infamous. It had an interesting cast, including excellent performance from Toby Jones (as Truman Capote), Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig and Juliet Stephenson. The trailer hailed Gwyneth Paltrow as one of the leading actors, yet she sang a song at the beginning (admittedly very well) and that’s all. This was an excellent film, but it doesn’t seem to have got any Oscar nominations. Perhaps Capote’s success last year screwed things up for Infamous.

USA trip, day 6 - 29th January

Today, it was back to brilliant sunshine. We started out from the Stagecoach Lodge which we could also reach by car. The chair-lift is a bit faster here than at Boulder, and allowed us to get to our favourite run, Olympic, in double quick time.

It’s a strange thing skiing; today, in the brilliant sunshine, I felt as if I couldn’t do a thing wrong. I was concentrating on tipping my skis over as far as I dared as I made turns. The new shaped skis (or carvers as they are known) allow you to turn the skis by using their broad tips and narrow waist and pressure from the feet. The faster you go, the more you need to tilt your skis on their edges. When you get it right, you experience a fantastic feeling of accelerating out of each turn and this is known as carving. Inexperienced skiers tend not to edge their skis much, and slide around turns as their skis lose grip. People who are proficient at carving leave perfectly parallel crisp tracks on the snow and seem to expend the minimum of effort in a beautiful rhythmic dance down the slope.

The freezing fog from yesterday left the trees coated in a beautiful white frost, which melted slowly through the day. The birds seem quite active today. I have seen Clark’s Nutcracker just about every day, and heard Mountain Chickadee too. Today, they seemed to be everywhere. Its noticeable here that the Clark’s Nutcrackers and chickadees don’t seem to hang around the eateries on the mountain, compared to the ski areas around Banff in Canada, where they take food off peoples’ plates. Here they seem to feed naturally. Apart from a pair of Ravens, we’ve seen nothing else. So much for my hope of running into a Williamson’s Sapsucker, which ought to be present. Perhaps they descend to lower altitudes in winter?

We skied all over the mountain, including down to California Lodge which involved negotiating some areas where the snow was running bare. A lot of people were coming down a trail called the Gunbarrel, which is a long, steep and bumpy “double black” run that’s way beyond my capabilities. Some were wearing t-shirts only on top, a sign of how mild it gets at midday.

Back in the hotel room, I flicked through endless crap TV channels. One show, hosted by local ski personality Glen Plake (distinctive for his foot-high multi-coloured mohican hairstyle), was definitely made on a tight budget. The show featured all kinds of drossy ski and snowboard video clips. Though interestingly, he showed some footage from last winter's “Gunbarrel Challenge”, in which hundreds of contestants try to negotiate the Gunbarrel Trail above California Lodge 25 times in the shortest possible time. They must have thighs of steel. The close of his show was a group of punters in a bar somewhere in SoLaTa (work it out) whooping at video clips of people having terrible ski/snowboard accidents. The more horrendous the accident, the louder they whooped and that decided the eventual winning “accident”.

USA trip, day 5 - 28th January

It was overcast, breezy with a lot of wind-chill. We again used Boulder Lodge as our start (and finish) point. I was feeling off colour and with the weather conditions, not enjoying my skiing. It’s strange, but you get days when you don’t feel you can do anything right, and this was one of those days for me. Because it was overcast, I found it difficult to pick my line on the slopes, because I was feeling off colour, my technique was going to pot. George seemed to be bombing along just fine. Unfortunately, the Olympic run wasn’t open today to bolster my fragile confidence.

We took refuge in one of the mountain lodges where lots of people had the same idea. We were joined at our table by a couple from Glasgow and another couple from Michigan. We had an interesting chat – the couple from Michigan were apologising for George Bush, and the woman from Glasgow admitted that she’d had a couple of “off days” too. They answered the mystery of the beads in the trees. Apparently it stems from New Orleans Mardi Gras, where participants in the parade throw these beads into the watching crowds. These beads appear in all kinds of unexpected places across the country to advertise the event. They couldn’t help explain the bra in the tree however, although the woman from Michigan did say how much she’d enjoyed going to Mardi Gras when she was a young single woman.

We gave up early in the afternoon. The wind was getting up a bit more and blowing freezing fog onto the trees. This didn’t do much for the visibility, and it was pretty cold on the slower chair-lifts too.

We used the swimming pool in the hotel which is nicely landscaped around huge rock formations, complete with a waterfall and a (very) hot tub. Had cocktails in the bar, then went to the buffet again.

Casino hall at the Montbleu

USA trip, day 4 - 27th January

A view over South Lake Tahoe - Mont Bleu is the big building furthest to the right.

We drove to the Boulder Resort in Nevada this morning where we took slow chairs up the hill. We eventually found our way to the Olympic trail which is a beautifully groomed piste, and was a great place to practice carved turns. We did a black diamond run (one of the few that’s open) called Little Dipper which is slightly bumpy, steepish and icy. We survived, although this won’t go down as one of the most elegant executions of this run.

In general, we’ve found the blue runs at Heavenly to be pretty straightforward and well within the capability of all except beginners. Compare this to Lake Louise in Canada, where blue runs are much tougher; often steep, icy and occasionally even with moguls.

We’ve been noticing that some of the trees next to the chairlifts are adorned with coloured shiny beads, mostly silver and purple in colour. What’s that all about? One of the trees also had a bra in the trees; WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT?

It got quite crowded by late morning, the piste became quite churned up, so we went back to the quieter Boulder area where we could enjoy our skiing more.

After a “eat all you can” buffet supper at the hotel ($20 each at weekend, cheaper during the week), we watched a movie in the room – SAW III – a nice piece of family viewing to help you get off to sleep!