Nilesh's Posterous

Lake Tahoe 2010 trip

Jai and Aruna had a timeshare in Tahoe that they could only use for the weekend. Being the friend that does not work at an office, they graciously offered me to work from there if I wanted for the week. It was nice for a change from San Francisco to work walking distance from the Heavenly ski lift. Everyday I'd ski a couple of hours and work for the rest of the day accessing the internet tethering through my iphone to do my work. Was a perfect winter getaway and we even had a big storm one of the days - about 6 inches of snow and blizzards up in the mountain. I did go up and there was like no visibility few feet in front of you and unseen obstacles all over the course. Different skiing experience skiing in a blizzard :)

Filed under // Lake Tahoe beautiful holidays skiing snow travel us travels white

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Is there something like too much powder??

The weekend was perfect summer-like skiing conditions, but this early morning, we had a mega big storm and when I got up, there was like 5-6 inches of snow on the ground. Was lucky, I am staying only a few blocks from the Nevada stagecoach heavenly lift (only lift that's open.. koz too much strong winds). Went up for a couple of hours of skiing in the morning (glad I got the pass for these short time runs). While powder is nice, I think as everything too much of it ain't that fun.. it was snowing the entire time i was up on the slopes and visibility was very minimal. Did a couple of runs in the morning and came back to finish up some work.

Filed under // Lake Tahoe nileshdosooye skiing snow

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El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina

El Calafate is a small town in Patagonia in Argentina, which serves as a base city to explore the neighboring Perino Moreno Glacier and El Chalten for great hiking. I was actually on my way to Ushuaia from Puerto Madryn and we had to change buses in Rio Gallegos. As I boarded my next bus, they handed us immigration forms. I was suprised as I thought it's from Argentina to Argentina - hence why the need for immigration. They told me there's no direct way from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia. So we need to exit in Chile, do immigration and get back in Argentina again. Big problem for me, as I had only a single entry visa to Argentina :(( Fortunately, I realized that in time and before the bus left, got my bags out.

So, as I was stranded in Rio Gallegos, checked out the other buses and the best place to go from there was El Calafate and they had a few buses from there. So, that's how I ended up in El Calafate.

El Calafate is a nice little charming cold city. While driving there, it was snowing all the way to there and we got there in an all snowy white town. Was beautiful. The town does not have much in terms of attraction - but it has a nice frozen laze which we can walk on and see many pink flamingos. The great thing about El Calafate though is as it's low tourist season - I got a great deal - 60 pesos ($15 USD) for 3 nights accommodation at America Del Sur Hostel (it even had heated floors !))

The main thing to do from El Calafate is to do tours to Perino Moreno Glacier which I'll post in the next entry.

Filed under // argentina el calafate patagonia pink flamingo snow south america backpacking travel travelogue winter

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Skiing/Snowboarding Trip at Lake Tahoe

I had worked during the Thanksgiving holidays, as I don't like to travel when everybody else travels and had asked my boss if I could swap out the days off another time. So I took them out this past week and went to Tahoe from Thursday to Sunday. Had to make use of the season pass I bought for heavenly ski resort. I think that by now I have paid off the price of the season pass already from the number of times I have already gone. Each lift ticket per day at heavenly cost $84. Season pass was the best way to go.

I had bought my skis from craigslist this time and did not have to rent skis. But I also wanted to snowboard and before going, I went to Sports basement on Wednesday night and got a snowboard and boots. All their gear was brand new and the boots even had silica gel still in them. Sports basement has this awesome deal of $30 for 2-3 days (supposedly weekend), but they allow me to pick it up on Wednesday night and drop it on Monday evening. Can't be more awesome and cheaper than that.