Editor's note: The following is the Editor's Letter that appears in the 2020 Ski & Ride issue. Adding to a long list of inconveniences in 2020, Tahoe residents awoke on September 5 to find a thin coat of ash on their cars and patios. Heavy smoke choked...
“Tahoe ain’t what it used to be back in ‘The Day.’” It’s a refrain I’ve heard from longtime locals since almost the day The Day ended (sometime prior to the mid-90s if you’re a Boomer; if you’re under 40, maybe 2006). But when judging whether Tahoe...
The Sierra is often slighted by hardcore skiers, but as last winter showed, when Mother Nature unleashes on the mountain range, there is nowhere better to be Last winter I found myself in a familiar conversation with a friend who lives in the Rocky Mountains. We...
A failed sunset balancing act under Rainbow Bridge results in one indelible moment captured on camera A highline, as a noun, is an elevated length of tubular webbing tensioned between two fixed objects. The webbing is an inch wide and has a tensile strength of 4,000...
It’s hard to smile through a season-ending knee injury, but what happens when even your once majestic grin suddenly frightens small children? The delectable concoction was piled tantalizingly in hand—the crisp bread, the colorful layers of pickled cucumbers, carrots and radish, the mint, spice, pork and...
“A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It's my favorite part of the business, live concerts.” -Elvis Presley I can still recall the image with Technicolor clarity. In May of 1976, our...
The waves crashed over the edge of my raft, rolling it hard onto its side. The wind howled across The Lake. Whitecaps foamed over the surface. The chilly water seemed alive and threatened to tip my yellow and blue one-person inflatable. I laughed and pulled...
“Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us closer to the actually existing world and its wholeness.” —Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild I was fortunate enough to grow up...
“There is a Paiute proverb to the effect that no man should attempt the country east of the Sierras until he has learned to sleep in the shade of his arrows. This is a picturesque way of saying that he must be able to reduce...
His baritone barks echoed up the canyon like mournful pleas. They held such sadness and were inflected with such abandonment that for a moment I thought about turning back and scrapping my plans. Instead, I kept skinning up Horse Creek Canyon as his barks slowly...