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Irrational Exuberance on the Sierra Crest: 12/23/2004. Free time is pretty tough to come by these days, so I was pleased to have a free day on Thursday to cut loose and get in my first skiing of the year. It hasn't really snowed here in Tahoe since Thanksgiving, but recent reports were of decent corn snow softened by the warm weather. Of course, as luck would have it, Thursday's forecast was a break from the norm. Sunny skies were on tap, but so were cold temps and extremely high winds. This would not be a day for corn. I wasn't really up for paying top dollar to ski ice at one of the local resorts, so I decided to forgo the turns and seek out a nice scenic tour. I also wanted a bit of a challenge since I knew that I wouldn't get in too many days this year. With winds expected to gust at around 80mph on the high ridges, I settled on the natural choice -- skiing from Donner Pass to my house at Squaw Valley. What better way to spend a day than freezing your ass off on a high ridge with little snow, getting nuked by winds? Why not spend your first day of the year doing a fairly committing point to point tour? And why not do this 14 mile tour on December 23, the third shortest day of the year. I think Alan Greenspan would call this type of thinking "irrational exuberance".
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