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The arduous Road

The eve to a snowboarding day is almost always sleepless. I even prepared my gear and waxed the board Tuesday, two days before snow day so that all i had to worry about when i got home from work on Wednesday was eat, feed the dogs and go to sleep, in that order. Sometimes i wonder why i even bother trying to sleep when it hardly ever works... A snowboarding eve insomnia, it never fails. Maybe i shouldn't have a fixed schedule during the winter... just surprise my ass and tell me i'm off Tomorrow. So what am i doing snowboarding without any sleep? Well the secret is take two doses of DayQuil before heading up Mountain... trust me you'll like the rejuvinating effect, forget the Red Bull, DayQuil works much much better. Even better than Red Bull & Beer... which i've tried Haha.

Before turning into a pumpkin on Wednesday night, like a ritual, i checked the Big Bear Mtn website for weather updates. I seem to remember a glaring Highway Advisory about highway 330 which i unwisely ignored. It aint snowing so why should i worry about road conditions, i thought. When i was nearing the bottom of the San Bernardino mountain ranges, the highway, i noticed, was devoid of vehicles with snowboards or skis on their roof racks. I knew i was on the right highway because i'd taken the same road a hundred times before, in fact even though i can't name the highways and streets, i have a map mentally etched in my memory. When i finally reached the intersection of highway 30 and 18 which leads to Big Bear, i was alone... facing a road block with a mocking sign that read "Closed due to mud slides Use Alternate Route" and i swear for a moment i thought it read "Closed nimrod u shouldda read the Highway advisory when u checked www.bearmtn.com". Fuck i cursed under my breath. I called Caltrans (California Transportation Dept i believe it stands for) which only verified that the highway was indeed closed thank you very much and suggested to take an alternate route to Big Bear without actually suggesting THE actual alternate route... i mean okay take an alternate route i get it... but what road or fucking highway is that exactly?? Well i did take an alternate route to Big Bear once before about 9 years ago when Highway 18 was closed i just couldn't remember what highway exactly with that stupid Closed due to mudslide Use alt route sign in front of me. And so like an unwavering trekker i get back on the highway determined to find my way. No more than 2 miles later it came to me like a ray of light "HIGHWAY 38" i exulted. And so away i go to Highway 38 which is only 5-7 miles longer than the regular route. When i got to the ski resort parking lot i swear there were only 6 cars.

The snow was good. It's the kind of stuff i'm used to, man-made hard packed and trimmed to hard brittle ridges that look like white heaven. The kind of snow that is most conducive to that carefully waxed and methodically sharpened snowboard. Conversely because of the speed that you're able to sustain with the hard snow it's also the most scary & perilous.

Okay well thats our snow lesson for the day Haha.

Posted by: Marc Gabay
Thursday, March 02, 2006