Heavenly days at Heavenly Valley

The first few flakes of snow swirled about my windshield as I began the long, winding climb -- in a rental car without chains, because I was too cheap to pay another $35 -- up out of Carson City. By the time I had crossed Spooner Pass and descended into South Lake Tahoe, about 2 p.m., the white stuff was coming down hard and sticking on the road.

Before driving to our rented cabin, I stopped at the lakeshore for a gourmet feast at Mickey D, but developed butterflies in my stomach, not entirely caused by my grilled chicken sandwich, as I watched the snow falling harder and harder and piling up deeper and deeper. Will I be unable to reach the cabin through the blizzard, I wondered, because I insisted on having a lousy sandwich?

Finishing the sandwich quickly, and tossing out most of the fries, I drove up Ski Run Blvd., near the base area on the California side of Heavenly Valley, streets and roads becoming ever more slippery and treacherous, and anxiously maneuvered my car into the cabin's driveway.

I was soon joined by the others. Relatives and friends from the Bay Area -- Sonoma, Healdsburg, and San Francisco. The word had gotten around that the Sierras were in for a major storm, and some of them prudently arrived hours earlier than they had originally planned. By 4 p.m., all nine of our group had arrived, bearing wine, food, skis and boards, and their ever present wit and enthusiasm.

That was Saturday. There was to be no skiing that day, nor any on Sunday, as the snow continued to fall. Instead, we shared that oddly cozy feeling of isolation, of being trapped even, in a warm house, with nothing to do but amuse ourselves, while the snow outside drifted ever deeper and we wondered if we would ever make it home again.

A few determined souls did find a cab driver willing to venture out to the cabin on Saturday night and haul them through the blizzard to a raucous rock show at one of the Nevada casinos. Those of us with more sense and gentility settled down to a peaceful regimen of billiards tournaments, wining and snacking, good talk, and a DVD marathon that lasted until 2:30 a.m. A magnificent trio of cinematic accomplishment: "West Side Story," "What About Bob," and "Terminator 2."

By Sunday afternoon, the snow began tapering off. Monday dawned brilliant with blue sky and sunshine. All lifts were open, all runs had been groomed overnight, and we were in, as it were, Heaven! We skied a full day, interrupted only by open air lunch and beer breaks half way up the Nevada slopes. The air was warm enough for us to deem the experience "spring skiing." Dazzling sun required dark glasses or goggles, not to mention generous application of SPF 40 sunblock. The slopes were free of excessive weekend skiers, and the lift lines were just long enough to let leg muscles rest briefly before approaching another run. The snow had that special, fresh-fallen, non-icy quality that makes you think that maybe you've always been a far better skier than you remembered.

We were happy peeps.

Back at the cabin, once Denny had bravely shoveled a foot of snow from its cover, the hot tub awaited. One by one, each of us laughed and squealed his or her barefoot way across the snowy deck and jumped, beer clutched in hand, into the super-heated water. Aching quads immersed in boiling water. T'was good.

Heaven may prove to have as many facets as it has inhabitants. If so, I'm sure there's some heavenly corner, for those of us so inclined, where you can sit immersed in bubbling, steaming water with your friends and relatives, a cold beer in hand, watching distant snow-covered mountains grow fiery in the dying sun.

The count down continues . . .

Chiang Mai, Thailand. I smile dreamily at the blank computer screen. Even the sound of its name is musical -- "Chiang Mai" -- conjuring up visions of saffron-clad monks and monasteries, peasant markets, riverside beer gardens, hidden opium dens and Eastern bandits. Just three weeks from today, Denny and I descend into Chiang Mai, flying in by quick hop from Bangkok. At the hotel, we'll meet and become acquainted with a local guide and twelve other excited travelers, our friends for the following two weeks as we wander bug-eyed through the ancient kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. (Actually, Laos is now a "People's Democratic Republic," but never mind.)

I've visited Chiang Mai once before, five years ago. It's a beautiful and fascinating city. Chiang Mai's exotic enough, certainly, in its own right. I'm excited to sense how we're now treating it as the last outpost of 21st century civilization, a mere gathering place of convenience, before we boat across the Mekong River into Laos, pressing thence into the unknown.

I exaggerate, of course. Virtually no place in the world, sadly, is today untouristed. Apparently, even the camel caravans and souks of forbidden Timbuktu today witness trans-Sahara auto races. Thousands of Westerners visit Laos, and especially Cambodia, every year. The ruins at Angkor Wat, where we spend our final days of the trip, are a major magnet for tourists visiting Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, we will thankfully be away from those destinations -- the cruise ship ports, the casinos, the beach resorts -- that attract the great bulk of the world's tourist dollar. I deem us, therefore, to be "adventurers."

We'll travel by boat, occasionally by bicycle, on foot along forest trails and over towering ruins, by van on back roads. We'll stay in huts with ethnic tribal families and in river-bank eco-lodges, as well as in small hotels. Admittedly, I dream of weirder and more adventurous travel. I fantasize over Lonely Planet guides. I read nineteenth century explorers' journals. If Denny and I had the time, we'd visit these countries by ourselves, without guides. We'd hitch rides or buy motor bikes, sleep in hostels and tents. But we have two weeks. Life is full of compromises. I'm satisfied that we'll find this compromise to be worth every moment.

Meanwhile, my assignments at work seem to increase exponentially as the date for departure draws closer. The ever-malicious Cosmos seems determined to break my spirit, to exhaust me before I can escape Seattle. Hah! I am indomitable! I may find myself crushed beneath a stack of the accumulated detritus of two weeks of legal practice upon my return, but I am so out of here on the morning of November 16.

My loyal readers can expect a report on my return. Hopefully, you'll be spared a slide show. Meanwhile, however, I hope to find time to fire off a few more postings on subjects of more general interest before I leave.

Photo: Buddhist monk at Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Visit to Yesteryear

Coney Island: What I was expecting

The reality: July 24, 2007

The Dutch named it Conyne Eylandt, or "Rabbit Island," because the place was overrun with rabbits. The English, with their usual acute sensitivity for foreign languages, thought those words sounded like "Coney Island," and there you are. I was expecting a beach overrun by rabbit-like human hordes, as in the top photo above, but the reality -- even on a hot, beautiful day in July -- was something quieter and in some ways sadder.

Two bucks gets you a one-hour express ride on the MTA's "N" train from Times Square to Coney Island, on the south coast of Brooklyn. I stepped out of the station, not knowing quite what to expect, and found before me a long sandy beach with a rotting wooden boardwalk, a flat Atlantic Ocean with very little surf, a tacky carny atmosphere, and a decaying amusement area called Astroland.

Coney Island also has a pier jutting out into the Atlantic. Believe me, that is the only resemblance Coney Island bears to the beach at Santa Monica.

I couldn't actually bring myself to enter Astroland, but I more or less circum-navigated it. It's located in a strategic area, near the subway terminal. It features a rather interesting and complex ferris wheel ("the Wonder Wheel"), and it boasts of the Cyclone, which was built in 1927 and is one of the nation's oldest surviving wooden roller coasters. A separate landmark, a few hundred yards to the west, is the 271-foot high Parachute Jump, the first such ride ever built, constructed for the New York World's Fair in 1939.

Astroland is to be razed to the ground at the end of the summer. The Cyclone will be reduced to kindling. The Parachute Jump will continue to be maintained as a landmark -- "Coney Island's Eiffel Tower" -- but has not been operated as a ride for many years.

In its heyday, before World War II, Coney Island boasted three major amusement parks: Luna Park, Dreamland, and Steeplechase Park. Luna Park closed in 1946, after a series of fires. Steeplechase Park, the last of the big three, threw in the towel in 1964 -- apparently in response to competition from Disneyland and similar modern theme parks, together with some minor 1960's gang activities in the area that scared away visitors. Across the street from Steeplechase Park was a monster roller coaster called The Thunderbolt, which continued to operate until 1983. (The Thunderbolt was actually built over and around a house, a situation made famous in Woody Allen's movie, Annie Hall.) The Thunderbolt was finally demolished in 2000.

Present day Astroland was a smaller amusement area that was revived and enlarged in later years, after the big three had closed. When it shuts down this year, to be replaced by a hotel, the amusement ride tradition of Coney Island will come to an end. What will be left are carnival-type attractions, a few isolated rides such as a carousel and bumper cars, a long boardwalk, and a decent if unexciting sandy beach.

You'll still be able to buy an original Nathan's Coney Island Hot Dog ("Home of the International Hot Dog Eating Contest" -- male world record: 66). And the Cyclone's ghost will live on as the guiding spirit of the "Brooklyn Cyclones," a single-A farm club for the Mets, that plays on the site of the old Steeplechase Park.

And so it goes. The ride back to Times Square seemed to pass quickly as I sat, lost in thought, staring out the window.

Pascal in Tasmania

More of Pascal's travel adventures

An earlier post provided photos and email excerpts from Pascal, regarding his term break travels in New Zealand. Last weekend, he traveled with friends to Tasmania, and reported on his adventures by email.

Pascal is a junior, majoring in economics, at the University of British Columbia. He is spending this term at the University of Melbourne, supposedly to enrich his studies in economics. I suspect that, this term, it will be mainly his parents, back home in Sonoma, CA, who get the lessons in economics. (Just kidding, Pascal, you're a smart, hard working guy and have more than earned all the fun you're having now.)

(I've added a few paragraph breaks, to make the post more readable.)
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Hey guys! Here's a little recap of my trip to Tasmania this past weekend! So we arrive in Hobart at around 10:30ish and take a shuttle to our hostel. Our hostel was really cool - this really big old house that they just turned into a hostel. So it was really old and funky. That night we decided to check out Hobart's night life! So we roamed the streets at around 12 AM and it was DESERTED! Nothing was going on except for one bar that had some show that cost more than we were willing to pay. But it was still fun to walk around and check stuff out.

The next morning some of us went to get the car (oh right, there were 5 of us all together). Then we drove up to this mountain that overlooked the city. Holy moly! Fantastic view! You could see for miles and miles! We had great weather! After that we just drove and drove and would stop at little towns along the way to see waterfalls or lakes etc. Very pretty scenery. That night we were looking for a campsite... that never seemed to come. We looked and looked... and then looked down at the gas gage and realized that we were on empty!!! Oh boy... the next 20 mins to the closest town consisted of us going very slowly up hills... and then shifting into neutral on the downhills to save as much gas as possible! Hahahaha... it was pretty hilarious looking back on it... but at the time we were really quite scared of being stranded in the middle of no-where!

But alas, we did make it to the town and got some much needed gas and relief! We drove back to the campsite (which we located, but wanted to get gas first) and had a great night of vodka and campfires! The stars were fantastic! Southern cross was out in force. The next morning we drove to Cradle Mountain. The drive there was pretty much alllllll fog! We were so worried that when we got there we'd hike through the fog... to see spectacular views of... fog! BUT... as we drew closer it all cleared up and we were left with yet another beautiful day! The hike was in this national park and we had to take a shuttle to get out to the trail head. We did this hike that was really nice, not too hard, but still a good work out. We hiked up to this awesome lookout at cradle mountain. Found this little spot up there with an awesome view.

That night we drove and drove and after eating pizza in a park and playing frisbee in the dark we drove some more. We were looking for this campsite near this town called Fingal. Well... we couldn't find it so we stopped in at the local pub, which was the only thing open mind you, and Aaron along with Kaye went in to ask for directions. Hahaha, they came out laughing hysterically. They reported that after not finding any bar tender they asked some lady at the bar. She said that we should just camp in her front yard! She was really serious and gave us directions and everything! So we drove round and round the tiny town looking for her place.

Eventually we found it and decided that we were really gonna do this. So we set up the tent... and then we heard dogs barking and an old man showed up in the next plot of land. We had to explain to us that we weren't terrorists and that Karen had told us we could camp there.
Bahahaha.... we proceeded to drink quite a lot of Vodka (that we bought on our NZ trip) and headed down to the pub! Oh man.... gong show! We had sooooo much fun! First thing they make us do is sign our name on the wall of the bar! I left my everlasting mark on the bar in Fingal! Oh man... then we just drank a lot of beer and got to know the locals! I think my pictures speak for themselves. I went a little trigger happy. By the end (or probably half way through) people were probably so tired of me taking pictures! Hahaha... there was arm wrestling, pool playing, story telling... the whole lot! And then after the bar closed we took the party back to Karen's house! Baaaaaaaahahhaha... oh man. So much fun. This town was so incredibly red-neck... you have no idea. Karen, the very nice lady who's house we stayed at, she had her first kid when she was 15! NO JOKE! But everyone was very nice and we all had a great time.

The next morning we said our farewells and took off to Wineglass Bay on the East Coast. Once there we took off on a hike up to this fantastic viewpoint. The hike up consisted of us scrambling up rocks and boulders basically making our own way up while following some yellow arrows. It was pretty much my ideal hike! Love boulder hopping! So this was great! Once up on top we looked down on Wineglass Bay on the other side and we were completely blown away! It was gorgeous. The color of the water was this deep turquoise blue and the sand was incredibly white. It was so worth the hike up! Well actually the hike was worth it alone! That evening we stopped off at a beach and went swimming in the Tasman Sea just to say we had. It was FREEEEEEZING! We all sprinted in at the same time and then ran out screaming out heads off. Aaron and I proceeded to sprint down the mile long beach to catch the tail end of the sunset. It was a fantastic time! That night we drove back to Hobart and after looking around for a campsite... decided that a park on the outskirts of town would do just fine, so we set up camp and woke up at 6:30 to catch our 8:30 flight the next morning!

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All I knew about Tasmania is that's where the Tasmanian devil is found. According to Wikipedia, "It is characterised by its black fur, offensive odour when stressed, extremely loud and disturbing screech, and viciousness when feeding. It is known to both hunt prey and scavenge carrion and although it is usually solitary, it sometimes eats with other devils." Reminds me of some people I know.

Pascal didn't see any. They apparently are dying out from some devil disease.

Pascal in New Zealand

And now, for something completely different ....

Those of you who know Pascal -- and yes, I know you folks do read my blog, even if you won't leave me any comments! -- anyway, you probably know that he's spending half of his junior year at the University of Melbourne. A bunch of his fellow dormies are from New Zealand, and he's just finished touring that country with them during his term break.

Whenever he found a cyber cafe, he sent Dean and Francine vivid emails describing his experiences. He copied me in on some of them ... just because he knew that I'd gnash my teeth with envy as I read each one! And I did!

I thought I'd give you a few excerpts -- dashed off quickly, but highly descriptive, and quite expressive of his excitement -- and also three of his photos.


It was amazing! We had about an hour hike to get up there... and get this, it was in a RAINFOREST! yes... that's right... you hike through a rainforest to get to a glacier! Crazy! So you go from being really warm to freeeezing! Once we got on the glacier we threw on some crampons and got hiking. It was quite the experience. Quite slow because our guide had to constantly carve steps out for us with her pick axe. It was really incredible to be on there though. Took way too many pictures! Anyways... that was amazing fun. And afterwards we hopped into our car (now named Misty due to her light complexion) and took off for what turned out to be quite the drive.

While we were en route we decided... why not just drive for most of the night and get as close to Milford Sound as possible? So we did. After a brief dinner in a one-cafe-restaurant-town in the middle of no where we drove... and drove... and drove. It was really nice actually. Two people would sleep in the back seat and two would drive and navigate. We almost hit about 5-6 animals along the way... but I don't think we actually DID hit any. Lots of possums and rabbits. So we ended up driving till about 1:45 AM and pulled off into a little roadside campground where we tied up our tent (because when we borrowed it the person forgot to give us the poles) and got to sleep. Two slept in the tent and two in the car. Hahaha... the tent actually worked just fine and we were up and goin in the morning. It only took us another 45 minutes to get to Milford Sound which was an absolutely breath-taking drive! The fjordlands were INCREDIBLE! Maaaaassive mountains all around and crazy waterfalls all over! Aw man... could not stop Ooooing and Ahhhhing. Milford sound is a TINY little town that doesn't even have a grocery store! We walked around town when we got there and then ended up just hanging out at our hostel after a failed attempt at a hike... because it was pouring rain...

Ok... so my time is out on the internet... more soon!

And five days later.....

My plan was to stay in Dunedin until Monday and then bus back, because the other guys had a flight back to Melbourne on Sunday morning... but once again, no availabilities... so I booked a place in Christchurch and just drove back with the boys. It was a nice drive back... stopped to play frisbee along the highway while watching the sun set which was absolutely amazing! The boys dropped me off at my hostel in Christchurch before spending the night at the airport and leaving very early the next morning back to Melbourne. My hostel is nice. It's really nice to just be able to relax and not be on the go all the time. Yesterday I slept in and then walked over to a Sunday market outside. I had a great crepe there (nutella of course) and then decided to check out the botanical gardens. Wow! It was sooo nice! It has a big creek running through it and people rent out kayaks and canoes and there are even those gondola things like in Venice! So I just grabbed a bench by the creek, whipped out my new Nick Hornby book called A Long Way Down (which is very good so far), listened to some tunes and had a GREAT time. It was just perfect! I can't describe to you how happy I was at that moment with the smiling kayakers and the beautiful scenery. Hahaha... it was hilarious, a whole gondola full of Japanese tourists floated by and one of the old ladies waved at me... so naturally I waved back, and one of the other old ladies thought that I was waving at her so she waved and I waved back and then another waved... eventually I got a wave from the entire gondola! Hahahhaha... ah such good times.

He's crazy of course, but we should all be so lucky to be so crazy!! Pascal, you idiot, if you read this blog, send me more mail!!

The Fading Light of Shangri La

Last year, 16-year-old Elisa Santry died in the canyonlands of Utah, while on a hike with Outward Bound. The day's hike was to be only seven miles, on a well marked jeep track, but Elisa somehow became separated from the other five teenagers. She wandered up a side trail in 110 degree temperatures, carrying a 40 pound backpack. She died of heat exhaustion before she could be found.

She died, dehydrated, just a half mile from the Colorado River, where the hike was to have ended

Elisa was a gifted student from Boston. She was hiking in the 16th day of a 22-day program. She had to beg her parents to permit her to join the program. In the sort of writing made famous by Jon Krakauer, Christopher Ketcham reconstructs her final hours in this month's National Geographic Adventure magazine.

Her parents have sued Outward Bound for negligent supervision.

Ketcham's article brings to mind a couple of disturbing, and related, trends. The first is the growing tendency of American parents to be overly protective, and overly litigious if that protection fails. It's hard to criticize this tendency in the tragic context of a daughter's death, but the same impulse can be seen in the way so many parents keep their kids busy, and "off the streets," in supervised activities during every waking hour, and in their active direction of their children's educations, even to the point of writing and submitting their college applications for them. A recent article interviewed a number of parents who had even sold their homes and moved to college towns, to join with their son or daughter "in the college experience."

This refusal to permit adolescents to make mistakes, and to take responsibility for the consequences of mistakes, strikes, as Ketcham points out, at the core objective of Outward Bound, which is to teach young people the self-confidence and the skills to handle themselves on their own, ultimately without supervision, under even the most extreme circumstances. As Ketcham observes in his article:

A 1991 study found that the radius around the home where parents allowed nine-year-olds to wander had shrunk to one-ninth of what it had been in 1970. Fear of risk -- and of litigation -- drives suburban homeowners to abide by "covenants" that prohibit basketball in streets, marbles-play on sidewalks, and fort-building in nearby woods. In California, Girl Scouts are often restricted from climbing trees at camp. The notion that accidents happen -- especially fatal ones -- is simply at odds with what most parents today are willing to accept.

Now cities have even removed swings, jungle gyms and teeter-totters from playgrounds, out of fear of risk -- risk both of injury to the kids, and of liability for themselves. Parents in other countries think we're insane.

The second disturbing trend, and the one that really occurred to me in reading Ketcham's article, although less explicitly stated, is the planet's increasing inability to provide opportunities for persons of any age to accept and embrace existential challenges. Less than a hundred years ago, in 1911-12, Robert Scott led an English expedition to the South Pole, a tragic venture that ended in the slow death of all of his party. He left behind the famous final entry in his journal:

Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale...We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people.

He was hailed around the world as the finest example of British adventurer. Today, he would be considered a fool, and his family would sue somebody, anybody, for not saving his life or preventing him from leaving home. But more to the point, there simply are not many ways left by which a person can test himself against the unknown, where the penalty for failure may be death. We have too many cushions to fall back on -- GPS devices, helicopter rescues, satellite voice and email communications.

Expeditions to Mount Everest are supported by a battery of technological tools, and wealthy climbers pay exorbitant amounts to drag themselves up fixed lines that have been installed for their use and convenience by Sherpas. Deaths still occur, under the extreme conditions of elevation and weather, but they are deaths observed and discussed by the entire world -- virtually as they are occurring -- over the internet. No one these days dies on Everest, leaving behind only a journal to be discovered and read months or years later.

Most people, of course, have no interest in challenges like the one Scott faced. But even travelers with a taste for adventure, for discovering the unknown and for losing themselves in unexplored places and civilizations, have fewer opportunities than ever today. Maps a hundred years ago had many blank spaces on them, especially maps of Asia and South America. And the map of Africa was virtually a total blank, once you looked inland from the coastal regions. Even road maps of the American West showed dirt roads turning to tracks, and tracks trailing off into the desert. Not so long ago, a kid could stare at a California highway map and dream of exploring and discovering hidden civilizations, lost cities, secret canyons, bizarre fauna. Shangri La in the Mojave! As the early American ecologist, Aldo Leopold, remarked, prophetically:

I would hate to be young again without wild country to be young in, for what avails 40 freedoms without a blank space on the map?

Today, the young person looking for a blank space on the map to explore finds little hope of secret mysteries. His bookstore will sell him a Lonely Planet guidebook with detailed information for virtually every village and hamlet in every country in the world. "Adventure travel," as sold by travel companies, may sometimes be actually adventuresome -- as in Tracy Johnston's Shooting the Boh -- but is more likely to be a carefully scripted trip with every detail planned in advance.

More and more destinations begin taking on the atmosphere of Disneyland or Las Vegas. Why spend money to go to Istanbul, where everyone speaks Turkish, when you can see the same sights with good food and English speaking hosts at AsiaMinorLand, or at the MGM Istanbul Hotel, Nevada? Especially once Istanbul itself, the real Istanbul, begins cleaning itself up and learning English, with chic bars that serve Bud Lite?

The would-be adventurer can still be an observant traveler. He will still find much -- very much -- that to him is new and amazing and enlightening. Travel itself helps anyone know himself better, and this has always been one of the real reasons for traveling. But there are few spaces left on the planet where the traveler can be an "explorer," in the classical sense of making discoveries that widen man's knowledge of new peoples and places.

This planet has been explored to the hilt. As Paul Fussell writes, "We are all tourists now."

Ah.... But someday. When we can travel to Mars.....!!!!