Sand Hill Cranes at Galt, Night ski at Boreal

It snowed heavily the previous weekend, so when my friend called me up and asked if I am interested in a 2 day ski trip, I figured why not?

I am really not much of a skiier, but does like to go to the mountain at least once or twice a year. After all, where I come from, snow is not a natural phenomenon:)

Four of us met up at about 9:30am in Milpitas, then vanpooled to Galt. Someone within the group had read that the natural reserve near Galt have a large population of sand hill crane migrating at around this time and given it is on our way to the ski resort, we might as well stop by for a visit.

Frankly, we were all very disappointed. When we drove into the reserve, we saw about a total of 10-12 sandhill cranes. These cranes are not entirely white, but more grayish in color, so they don't look all that pretty. Disappointed, we decided to stop by the visitor center to see if there are other spots for better bird viewing...

Turns out, we were at the reserve during a bad time. The cranes have mostly left the reserve looking for food. A better time for bird viewing would be early in the morning or later in the evening when they are back at the reserve resting...Oh well, at least this was not the focus of our trip:)

We then drove to Sacromento for lunch. Despite having lived in the Bay area for almost 7 years now, this is my first time having lunch in Sacromento. Again, someone in the group suggested New Canton Restaurant. It was a great suggestion! The quality of the dim sum was comparable to those in the Bay area. We also ordered a stew lamb with tofu skin that was hearty and flavorful. As we were in a hurry, I didn't feel I had tasted the food carefully enough to write a review, but I would gladly go back there for lunch or dinner on future ski trips.

We arrived at Boreal at about 3:30pm. After getting our lift tickets, we hit the slopes! We hit a ski lift called the "Accelerator" to the top of the mountain. From there, there is a blue route (#17)down the hill. I had felt it was somewhat steep, and maked really wide turns to come down the slope, but my fellow skiier were not frazed at all!

I had been stuck at the ski level of trying to do mostly parallel turns for a while now. My friend was very encouraging and gave me some good tips. She also showed me the drills she had practiced while she was learning parallel skiing. Feeling route 17 was too steep for me to concerntrate on improving my techniques, I went on a ski lift call the "Claimjumper" and did some green slopes instead. There was the added bonus of shorter lines at the Claimjumper:)

After several runs, I felt that my right turns had improved and I could stop fairly well going in that direction. I could slow myself down with left turns, but was unable to stop myself.

Boreal is a small resort and lights were installed to allow for night skiing. As the day light starts to fade, the snow became more icy. But by 6pm, a small breeze had began blowing. This help bring in some new powder onto the slopes, and the ski condition actually improved a little.

I hit the "Accelerator" a few times after dark, but the cold wind made it really uncomfortable on the ski chairs. I decided to stick to the shorter green run for the rest of the night.

We stopped skiing at about 9pm and headed to a hotel in Reno to spend the night.