Beautiful 5 mile round trip up to the campground, slight hills. Would be a nice place to backpack. Fresh water at campground.

6 mile round trip hike starting on the east side of the mountain to the campground and rock outcroppings at the top. Beautiful chapparal and oak forests in May with a view of the bay area. Camping here isn’t very appealing. Go down on the west side of the mountain above the San Andreas fault.

• Ocean View Room at the Radisson on Tahiti 1 night
• Premium Beach Bungalow at the Maitai Deam on Fakarava 4 nights all-inclusive
• Over Water Bunglaow at the Maitai Polynesia on Bora Bora 3 nights

Highlights:

• New Years Eve in Tahiti
• FAKARAVA! Tiny, remote island. Maitai Dream is the only resort and there is only one village. The atoll is max 10 feet high and only takes a few minutes to walk across. Beach Bungalow facing the beautiful lagoon, felt like our own private beach. Spent the time recovering from 2005, sitting in the sun, playing Skipbo in the afternoons, and drinking rums and pineapple juice. Went scuba diving twice—first dive saw a few sharks and a manta ray; second dive saw tons of sharks.
• Bora Bora was less beautiful (although it was more tropical looking), and less remote. Our overwater bungalow was at the beginning of the pier and looked out over the tiny hotel beach with the road running right behind it. We could feed the fish through the glass coffee table. Kayaked across the lagoon to Motu Pitu Aau—dumb idea, the waves are much bigger than they look. Motu Pitu Aau was a beautiful, pristine, remote feeling beach with a view of the island mountain. Crazy dogs on Motu Pitu Aau—one loved to jump straight up and down in the ocean chasing fish. Shark and ray feeding excursion with day long tour around the island and BBQ on Motu Pitu Aau. Luau on the last night. Tasty meals at roadside shack-type restaurants.

Highlights:

• western Utah salt flats
• Camping with the goats in “grizzly use area”
• Spending the first night on the camping trip thinking the wind blowing our tent was a bear attacking
• Yellowstone and Grand Tetons
• Southestearn Idaho
• Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy on tape

It was a quick trip. We got there on Saturday afternoon and spent some time on the beach and having margaritas. The next day was craziness—remember never to go to sushi dinner when you’re already drunk and especially after you’ve been drinking non-stop all day! Yikes! I think we were all sick for the next 3 days. Ahh…nothing like a college-esque road trip.

Crane Flat was still closed because of snow so we found a spot at Sweetwater, a few miles west of Yosemite on 120. Great alternative campground, although the drive into the valley was long.

We hiked Half Dome on Saturday—made it to the top, although I was powered by Thad and Sam and I don’t remember any of the views because Sammy proposed when we got there! I guess we’ll have to go back, but not for a few years.

As Sam and I drove up on Friday evening it started snowing and by the time we woke up in the morning there were 6 good inches of new, but slightly wet, snow on the ground. We fired up the old van and headed up to the hill. It was pretty windy and it kept snowing the rest of the day, so the only lift that was open was the main express. Despite being limited to one lift, we found some pretty good rruns in the trees on the front. At the end of the day I ran into Sam and he took me on the run he’d been going on most of the day—it was the best skiing on the whole mountain. I would mention Sam’s multiple double releases, but I think I’ll spare him the embarrasment.

It kept snowing all Saturday and the temperature finally dropped so it was light and fluffy. We didn’t think much of it until the next morning, when we realized that there was a good 18” on the driveway, and that we were at the end of a very long cul-de-sac. Since we were at the end of the line, the plows weren’t expected to get to our street until after they had finished everybody elses, so the boys started shoveling snow from the driveway. At about 8 a plow finally came down the road, but it turned out that he was just the driveway guy, so the boy’s work was for nothing and the road was still blocked after he left. So we decided to hike out to the road and hitch a ride up to the mountain.

The skiing was amazing! It stopped snowing, got a bit sunny and wasn’t windy at all, so all of the lifts opened up. The Promised Land even opened up for a little bit. We skiied just about every off-piste run on the mountain, and never had to do any more than once. They may deny it later, but Coleman and Dad said it might have been the best skiing they’d ever done.

We headed down Coastal Trail for about 3.5 miles until we got to the Alamere Falls cutoff on the left. The trail starts out on the ocean and is beautiful for the first mile, then it heads inland around Bass Lake and then Pelican Lake for the next 2.5 miles. The inland trail isn’t as pretty as the coastal, but such is life. Getting to the falls on Alamere Falls trail is a bit difficult since it isn’t maintained. It’s pretty overgrown, so wear pants for protection! The view of the falls isn’t great from the top. From the main bluff, the falls go down a bit and then pool again before dropping off to the beach. Conceivably you could scramble down to the final drop off bluff, but it looked a little iffy, so we skipped it. Next time it would be fun to hike to the bottom of the falls.