Tag: ★★★☆☆

Good ski days: three out of five stars

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2019–2020 Palisades Tahoe

Last Ski Day Before the COVID-19 Pandemic

On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) learned from media reports of a “pneumonia of unknown cause” in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in Central China’s Hubei Province.

I had read news about the mystery illness. It caused a brief pang of concern, but I figured it wouldn’t become a problem. A co-worker who traveled to Asia in mid-January told us about the new safety measures at the airports there. All the other new viruses that emerged in my lifetime either fizzled out or we learned to mitigate the risks and live with them. Why worry?

On January 30, with about 8,000 confirmed cases worldwide, the WHO declared the novel coronavirus outbreak (2019-nCoV) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Coronavirus Disease 2019, or COVID-19, a respiratory infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was well on its way to becoming a global pandemic.

I never considered not going to Reno, Nevada. I was planning to attend a concert in Reno on Saturday night and ski at Squaw Valley on Sunday. The United States had about 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on March 5, the day before I left. China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea were the far-away hotspots for the outbreak then.

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2017–2018 Snowbird

Fueled by Fat

Mauna Loa From Kohala
Mauna Loa from Kohala on the Big Island of Hawaii

I promise to talk (a little) about skiing later, but first let’s go to Hawaii.

The island of Hawaii’s northwest corner is in the rain shadows of Kohala, its oldest volcano, and 13,803-foot Mauna Kea, its tallest. Storms riding the trade winds from the northeast drop most of their rain on the windward side of the island before passing over the volcanoes. Thus, the stark, grassy landscape on the leeward side of the Big Island resembles the dry southeast corner of Idaho more than it does a tropical paradise. The resorts along this coast, however, still deliver quintessential tropical Hawaiian experiences, thanks to meticulous landscaping and modern sprinkler systems.

The Big Island of Hawaii, the archipelago’s youngest island, was literally still under construction when I arrived in November 2017 for the Ragnar Hawaii race. I had flown to the Big Island two days before Marie to see the newest earth on Earth. Lava was still flowing to the ocean from a vent on Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone called Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō (pronounced poo-oo-OH-oh). I parked my rental car amid a bazaar of bike rental outfits. Although the bike rental options were tempting, I stuck to my original plan to hike the four miles to the viewing site.

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