Saturday, December 18, 2010

When To Travel To Alaska

The weather patterns in Alaska can be extreme and quite unpredictable. You may be bathing in the sunlight for weeks before being blown out into the Pacific. The temperatures vary from a high of 100 degrees to a low of negative 80 degrees. Make sure you know what to expect depending on the month you choose to travel in.

June - August

The summer months are perhaps the most exciting time of the year. The sun shines nearly all day long here making for some very short nights. The sun energizes people as it refuses to go down. June 21st is the longest day of the year and it shines for 21 hours in Alaska that day. Even throughout the summer, you can expect some longer than normal daylight hours. June is the driest and the best month in the summer to travel. Alaska is generally warm depending on where you go. In the Arctic it is of course cooler than in the southern region. In the Artic, the snow could stick around until mid-June making for a cold and muddy experience up through the trails in the mountains. July is warmer than June is but not nearly as wet as in August. August is the rainiest time of the year so make sure to pack a raincoat and umbrella.

Summer does have one drawback while all the tourists flood to Alaska, high prices. The tourist industry has but 90 days to make all of the money they can to live on for that year. Working 3 months and having 9 months off pushes them to make as much money as possible and the higher the prices the better for them. July is the busiest travel month and this is where they make most of their money. From mid-June to mid-August is where the bulk of the tourists come to experience Alaska and it really drops off before Memorial Day and after Labor Day. Cruises are very popular from May to October.

May & September

These 2 months are still particularly good for travel. May is when the earlier tourists start flying in or coming in on cruises. By September, things are calming down and the remaining tourists are hoping to steal the last good deal of the year. May is warmer than September but this can vary. It depends greatly on where you travel. The farther north you go and the earlier in May you decide to travel; you will experience more chilly weather along with snow and mud. Alaska does not have a spring, they have a "breakup" where the snow and ice start to melt and cover everything with mud.

September can be a hit or miss month. You could experience warm and dry weather but the opposite is very true too. September can throw a foot and a half of rain on you while the sun barely peeks out. The weather patterns can be unpredictable but the sights could be the best if you catch it just right. The lights reflected from the snowy tundra and the boreal forest prompt an amazing display of bright, vivid colors in the sky.

October, November & April

These transition months take us from the busy summer months to the colder months in the winter. Tourists find little to do during this time. October is very wet and November is the start of winter however there is still not enough snow to ski or enjoy other winter activities. April is the end of winter when the snow melts and the mud forces many places to close.

December - March

The winter is the most exciting time of the year when anything that can be done with snow and ice is. February though mid-March is the peak of the winter where the sun gives you longer days. Many activities happen including skiing, snowmobile races, ice carving, snowshoeing, dog mushing and more. Winter is also the time for Anchorage's Fur Rendezvous in February and Iditarod Dog Sled race in March.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Bird Watching in the Adirondacks

Upstate New York is known for the fun and beauty that can be found in the Adirondacks. Bird watching in the Adirondacks is excellent and a combination of all the things that make the Adirondacks great.

Bird Watching in the Adirondacks

The Adirondacks are a mountain range in northeastern New York State. It is best know as a popular winter resort area with a long history of entertaining celebrities of a sort. Less well known is the fact that the area is a great place to pick up additions to your life list.

During the summer of 2005, Hamilton County held the first Adirondack Birding Festival to honor the birds whose habitat lie within the region. The festival encouraged the participation in hikes, canoe trips and nature walks to watch over 100 species nest in Adirondacks' Hamilton County, home to the Bicknell's thrush, a rare songbird only found in mountaintop forests of the Northeast. Other birds that can be seen during the festival include the Common Raven, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Golden-Crowned Kinglet to mention only a few.

The Adirondacks are home to many boreal bird species. Some of them include the Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Lincoln's Sparrow, Palm, Blackpoll Warblers, Yellow-Bellied, Olive-Sided Flycatchers and other species. The boreal chickadee is also native to the Adirondacks, but lives in Hamilton County. While bird watchers can find birds like the gray jay or black-backed woodpecker throughout the year, the migrating birds are seen in June. To find them, just keep quiet and listen for their singing, which announces their arrival to the Adirondack region. Once the migration begins, the area is flush with a wide variety of species and sightings can be made while driving along. Try not to crash!

The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council has also developed a ton of information devoted to education on birding in the Adirondacks. The council provides detailed maps and information on 86 Adirondack's birding sites and more than 300 species in the entire region including specialties such as the Bicknell's Thrush and Spruce Grouse. Contact them for more information.

Bird watching in the Adirondacks is a great way to get out of the big city. With the wide variety of species and sighting points, your life list is sure to benefit.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Birding in the Adirondacks

Upstate New York is known for the fun and beauty that can be found in the Adirondacks. Bird watching in the Adirondacks is excellent and a combination of all the things that make the Adirondacks great.

Bird Watching in the Adirondacks

The Adirondacks are a mountain range in northeastern New York State. It is best know as a popular winter resort area with a long history of entertaining celebrities of a sort. Less well known is the fact that the area is a great place to pick up additions to your life list.

During the summer of 2005, Hamilton County held the first Adirondack Birding Festival to honor the birds whose habitat lie within the region. The festival encouraged the participation in hikes, canoe trips and nature walks to watch over 100 species nest in Adirondacks' Hamilton County, home to the Bicknell's thrush, a rare songbird only found in mountaintop forests of the Northeast. Other birds that can be seen during the festival include the Common Raven, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Golden-Crowned Kinglet to mention only a few.

The Adirondacks are home to many boreal bird species. Some of them include the Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Lincoln's Sparrow, Palm, Blackpoll Warblers, Yellow-Bellied, Olive-Sided Flycatchers and other species. The boreal chickadee is also native to the Adirondacks, but lives in Hamilton County. While bird watchers can find birds like the gray jay or black-backed woodpecker throughout the year, the migrating birds are seen in June. To find them, just keep quiet and listen for their singing, which announces their arrival to the Adirondack region. Once the migration begins, the area is flush with a wide variety of species and sightings can be made while driving along. Try not to crash!

The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council has also developed a ton of information devoted to education on birding in the Adirondacks. The council provides detailed maps and information on 86 Adirondack's birding sites and more than 300 species in the entire region including specialties such as the Bicknell's Thrush and Spruce Grouse. Contact them for more information.

Bird watching in the Adirondacks is a great way to get out of the big city. With the wide variety of species and sighting points, your life list is sure to benefit.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

The Largest Places to Ski When You're Traveling

The truth is that the total planet is truthfully dotted with wild places to ski. It altogether counts on how much cash that you bring in to drop and what type of snowboarding that you're active in. For instance, being helicoptered up to a mountain top in Colorado to snowboard down over virgin powder just might be a special experience; it also can be one of the most big-ticket.

Northern Cali Skiing at it's Purest!

A wonderful surface area of the state that has been much too unheeded by snowboarding enthusiasts is Northern Cali and specially the wonderful resorts and ski facilities in the greater Lake Tahoe area. Not only is at that place exceptional snowboarding there but you likewise receive the lake itself that is substantially worthy of the travel.

Reliable Selections

These holiday resorts and snowboard runs such as Heavenly Valley, Squaw Valley and Boreal ridge have all been about for ages, so they don't make the fresh shine that several of the more of late built and more heavily campaigned resorts in points like Utah give.

North Lake Tahoe

Notwithstanding; they do have a basic elegance that's unaltered. When your not skiing maybe you will be participating in taking a drive through to the northern shore of Lake Tahoe, the genuine 1960's stamping grounds of Frank Sinatra and his friends.

Take a Travel Back in Time

Naught a good deal has transformed since then. The Gambling Casinos and nightclubs still experience that early 50s to late 60s look and you can almost experience the spirit of the "Chairman of the Board" still up at that place with his friends mellow and "chasing ladies" just like they used to do.

How to Discover a Tremendous Deal

The classified is today out. Credited to all of the competition from California Indian gambling casinos, costs have come down drastically on the high-class Southern Tahoe area where casinos are fighting it out by putting up steals like $3.99 T-Bone steak dinners with all the trims. Also suits in superior hotels can at present be rented for as little as $30 a day.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad

1. Origin and Construction

The clouds, draping the mountains like strands of silver steel wool, hung low over the Lynn Canal, gateway to the historic city of Skagway, Alaska, itself the origin of thousands of stampeders who had begun their 45-mile treks over the White Pass Summit toward the Klondike gold fields of the Yukon in Canada in 1897 and 1898. The throngs continued to infiltrate the area today from vessels which also sailed from Seattle, but all disembarked from one of the many daily cruise ships which docked a short distance away.

The passengers crowding the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad Depot spilled out to the concrete platform and into one of many departing trains, including those to Fraser, British Columbia. I myself would trace the path of the gold seekers to the White Pass Summit, located 2,865 feet above sea level on the United States-Canada border, but would do so on the rail which had been built to replace the overland foot trail and capitalize on the demand for travel created by the historic event.

The imminent journey had actually had its origin some 110 years ago. Prospectors, searching for gold along the Yukon River, had not yielded their first crop until 1896 when George Carmack and two Indians, Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie, uncovered some gold flakes in Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, although it had been another year before the world had been alerted to the discovery when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its now-famous headline of "GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!" in its July 17, 1897 issue shortly after disembarkation of 68 prospectors from the Steamer Portland in Seattle, Washington. The promise of seemingly instant, easy wealth, coupled with the deprivation of the Depression, sparked an historical event which involved 100,000 players and would ultimately shape parts of Alaska and the Yukon itself.

With the exception of seasonal steamship service on the Yukon River, and road and railroad construction not permitted in Alaska until Congress had passed the Homestead Act of 1898, there had been no internal infrastructure to support the stampeders' access to the klondike gold fields.

The Yukon itself, the vast, thinly populated expanse of land located above the 60th parallel in northwestern Canada which shares its border with Alaska and accurately earns its self-proclaimed slogan of "larger than life," is a topographically diverse, but ruggedly insurmountable territory of barren, treeless plains, boreal forests, rugged mountains, glaciers, and mirror-reflective lakes and rivers inhabited by Canada's First Nations people and abundant wildlife.

Because of its high latitude, it experiences more than 20 hours of daylight in the summer, but fewer than five in the winter, replaced, instead, by the northern lights known as the "aurora borealis." Aside from the major "cities," most communities are only accessible by floatplane or dogsled.

The Yukon's history is, in essence, that of the Gold Rush, and traces its path to five significant locations in both the United States and Canada.

The first of these, Seattle, Washington, had served as the gateway to the Yukon. Advertised as the "outfitter of the gold fields," it sold supplies and gear stocked ten feet deep on storefront boardwalks, grossing $25 million in sales by early-1898, and was the launching point for the all-water route through the Gulf of Alaska to St. Michael, and then down the Yukon River to Dawson City. Despite the high fares, which few could afford, all passages had been sold out.

Dyea and its Chilkoot Trail, the second location, had provided a slower, more treacherous, alternate route, via the 33-mile Chilkoot trail which linked tidewater Alaska with the Canadian headwaters of the Yukon River.

Skagway, Alaska, the third location, quickly replaced Dyea as the "Gateway to the Klondike" because of its more navigable White Pass route which, although ten miles longer than that of the Chilkoot Trail, had entailed a 600-foot-lower climb. Located at the northern tip of Alaska's Inside Passage, Skagway, now a major port-of-call on Alaska cruise itineraries, became the first incorporated city in Alaska in 1900 with a 3,117-strong population, the first non-native of whom had been Captain William Moore, who discovered the White Pass route into interior Canada.

Metemorphosed from a cleared, tent-dotted field to a boardwalk-lined town sporting wooden stores, dance halls, gambling houses, and some 80 saloons in the four-month period between August and December 1897 as a result of stampeders piling off of steamships in its port, it quickly swelled to a city of 20,000, its temporary inhabitants destined for the overland White Pass Trail and the Klondike gold fields themselves.

At Bennett Lake, the fourth location, 30,000 stampeders awaited the spring thaw, constructing 7,124 boats from whipsawn green lumber and launching their flotilla on May 29, 1898, fighting the Whitehorse rapids before following the Yukon River to Dawson City.

Dawson City itself, the fifth location, had been the actual site of the first gold flake discovery and had begun as a small island between the Yukon and Klondike Rivers hitherto only occupied by the Han First Nations people, but exploded into Canada's largest city west of Winnipeg and north of Vancouver with up to 40,000 gold seekers covering a ten-mile area along the river banks. Thirty cords of firewood were used to burn shafts through the permafrost to the mines themselves.

The White Pass trail in Skagway, quickly destroyed because of overuse, screamed of the need for a rail line replacement. Seeking to capitalize on the demand for safe, fast, and reliable transportation from its port to the Yukon, Thomas Tancrede, a London investor representative, and Michael J. Henry, a railroad contractor, had both proposed such a line and, after a chance, overnight meeting, sketched initial plans for the route.

The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad Company, established in April of 1898, had been comprised of three enterprises: the Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company, responsible for the Skagway-White Pass rail section; the British Columbia Yukon Railway, whose division linked the US-Canada border at White Pass with the provincial border between British Columbia and the Yukon Territory; and the British Yukon Railway, whose track ran from the Yukon Territory border to Whitehorse.

The railroad's four principle directors included Samuel H. Graves, President; E. C. Hawkens, Chief Engineer; John Hislop, Assistant Engineer; and Michael J. Henry himself, Contractor.

Construction of the $10 million, three-foot-wide, narrow gauge rail, which permitted sharper curves than the standard gauge would have and entailed engineering obstacles of hitherto unimaginable proportions, commenced on May 28, 1898, and involved a ten-foot-wide road bed, an almost 3,000-foot elevation gain over a 20-mile stretch, cliff-laid track, 16-degree turns, tunnels, bridges, bitter cold and snow, and 450 tons of explosives.

Built in three sections, from Skagway to White Pass, White Pass to Carcross, and Carcross to Whitehorse, the first of these proved the most difficult, although its first seven miles of track had actually been completed in only two months. On July 21, 1898, the day after the first locomtove had been delivered, an excursion train for invited dignitaries operated for the first time, pulling three flat-bed cars with wooden benches. Two months later, in September, the prepared track grade stretched 17 miles from Skagway, but a gold discovery in Atlin enticed a majority of the laborers away, complete with the vitally-needed picks and shovels for the project. At Mile 18.7, the deep, v-shaped, 215-foot-high canyon could only be connected with a 400-foot steel cantilever bridge built up of three-hinged arches.

The first train to operate to White Pass did so nine months after construction had begun, on February 20, 1899.

Another significant milestone took place still five months later, on June 6, when the tracks had reached Bennett at Mile 40.6, providing the first intermodal transportation connection with the smaller steamers which navigated the lakes and rivers through Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids. Some 20 miles later, the track reached Lewis Lake.

With the last spike driven at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, on June 8, 1900, the second of the three sections had been completed, permitting rail travel to Carcross, British Columbia, for the first time. This became the only overland route between the two cities until the South Klondike Highway had been constructed 78 years later.

With installation of the rails across the bridge in Carcross on July 29, 1900, and the driving of the last spike at 17:30 local time, the second of the three sections had been finished, thus completing the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, whose track extended 110 miles from the United States to Canada, of which 20.4 miles lay in Alaska, 32.3 miles ran through British Columbia, and 58.1 miles stretched through the Yukon Territory.

Skagway quickly became the "Gateway to the Klondike" and White Pass became the "Gateway to the Yukon."

2. In Service

The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad not only proved an engineering feat, but a sound commercial one with numerous, evolving purposes. Initially transporting mining equipment, materials, supplies, and tools on northbound runs, it carried copper ore destined for Washington smelters on return journeys in 1908, the commodity later replaced by silver lead in 1923, which it continued to carry until 1970. In fact, freight constituted an ever-increasing proportion of its revenue base until 1918, when the Depression had exerted its effects, and then re-increased, reaching 21,450 annual tons by 1940.

Perhaps the greatest increase in demand occurred in August of 1942 when the US Army commenced construction of the Alcan Highway, taking the daily tonnage from 200 to 2,000, and on October 1 of that year, the railroad had been altogether leased to the US Army's 770th Railway Operating Battalion, which re-equiped it with much-needed personnel, locomotives, and rolling stock. Indeed, its all-time highest volume, as a result of the temporary transfer, totaled 34 daily train operations collectively carrying more than 2,000 tons of cargo per day-or 47,506 tons per month.

Demand had also been created by the crude oil refinery in Whitehorse and the pipeline connecting it with Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories.

Modernizing its increasingly outdated equipment after the war, the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad acquired new locomotives and rolling stock, replacing its traditional steam engines with diesel-electric propulsion in 1954. The very last steam operation occurred ten years later, in 1964.

In 1955 it operated the world's first integrated, intermodal container service from Vancouver to Whitehorse when the first purposefully-designed container ship, the Clifford J. Rogers, transferred cargo at the Port of Skagway to the railroad's flatbed cars for ultimate transfer to semi-trucks using the Alaska Highway.

In order to cater to the transportation demands of the lead-zinc open-pit mine operation in the Yukon's Anvil Range, the railroad embarked on a significant modernization program in 1969, acquiring heavier, higher-capacity locomotives, 50-ton flatbed cars, and ore containers; rebuilding bridges and tunnels; constructing a warehouse in Skagway; and dredging a deep-sea fishing wharf.

Passenger transport had equally factored into its revenue base, with 16,000 having been carried as far back as 1901. During the 1970s, it carried passengers during the day and ore concentrates at night, accommodated in trains 80 to 100 cars long.

The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad had been the principle transportation means to and within northern British Columbia and the Yukon for 84 years, from its 1898 construction to 1982 when the Anvil Mine had closed and obviated its need. Because the remaining demand had been insufficient to sustain profitable services, it ceased operations at that time, ending a long history whose match had been lit by the Gold Rush of 1898.

But an invisible flame continued to flicker in the ensuing years of darkness. Gradually increasing demand, spurred by cruise ship arrivals in Skagway, sparked the railroad's 1988 seasonal, passenger-only service re-inauguration, its centennial year, resulting in an annual passenger count of 39,000. Both the increasing number of ship operations, and their increasing size, took the annual passenger total to over 100,000 in 1991 and 290,000 in 1998, all within a short, five-month season. By 2006, it carried more than 430,000 yearly passengers.

As the self-proclaimed "Gateway to the Yukon" and "Railway built of gold," the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad had been designated an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1994, one of only 36 world designs, including the Panama Canal, to do so, because of the obstacles surmounted during its construction, and today it is the only international narrow-gauge railroad still operating in North America.

Its current fleet consists of two steam engines, a restored 1947 Baldwin 2-8-2 Mokado designated Engine Number 73 and a 1907 Baldwin 2-8-0 originally built for the railroad and designated Engine Number 69; 20 diesel-electric locomotives, comprised of 1950 General Electric and 1960 ALCO types; and 80 restored and replica passenger coaches, the oldest of which dates back to 1883.

3. To White Pass Summit

The original White Pass Depot, a wooden, dual-floor train station facing Broadway where the tracks had originally been located, had been constructed in 1899 and had been adjoined to the Railroad Administration Building the following year. Upon its closure in 1969, at which time it had been taken over by the National Park Service, it erected a new, single-story structure on Second and Spring Streets and, with increasing passenger numbers, added a second floor in 1997.

Following the street-embedded, narrow-gauge tracks at 1245 past the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad Maintenance and Restoration Facility, my 12-car train, pulled by three diesel-electric locomotives, paralleled the shallow, rock-embedded Skagway River beneath the deep green, spruce-carpeted mountains of Tongass National Forest, commencing its slow ascent on the 3.9-percent grade of track.

The six-track coach yard just beyond the maintenance facility had been used for rolling stock overnight storage, servicing, and cleaning.

Curving to the right at Mile 5.8, the train, moving through 402 feet, crossed the east fork of the Skagway River, near the Denver Glacier Trail, which had been marked by the red White Pass and Yukon Route railroad caboose available for nightly rental from the US Forest Service.

Re-curving to the left at Mile 6.9, the train passed Rocky Point, affording dramatic views of Mt. Harding and its glacier-carved canyon. Skagway and its now-tiny cruise ship armada had been reduced to miniature proportions, dwarfed by the treeless, snow-capped mountains towering above them.

Clifton Station, at a 638-foot elevation with a 792-foot-long side track, had formerly served as a section house staffed by foremen, sectionmen, and cooks, but had been removed in the 1960s after track and roadbed improvements had eliminated its need. Its name had emanated from the granite ledge hanging over it.

Bridal Veil Falls, at Mile 11.5, descended 6,000 feet in a series of curved steps, a "humans" of white, foamy water "skipping" down the dark green pine path from their Mt. Cleveland and Mt. Clifford glacier parents. The cloud quilt tore open to reveal patches of blue sky.

The thin, barely visible silhouette of the 1230 Fraser train, equally pulled by three yellow and green diesel-electric engines, could be seen hugging the mountain ahead and at a higher elevation.

The tracks arced into a 90-degree right turn again. At Henry Station, which had been named after a White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad contractor, cargo had been transported down a steep tramway to packhorses stationed at the mostly tent-comprised White Pass City in the valley below for final delivery to the summit.

Shortly before reaching 1,871-foot Glacier Station at Mile 14.0, the tracks doubled, and then briefly tripled. The station itself had served as home to railroad section crew who had maintained the rail bed and replenished steam engines with water during their uphill climbs.

The wider roadbed of Box Canyon catered to the prevalent spring snow slides which carried streams of rock, gravel, and vegetation with them.

Crossing over Glacier Station Bridge, the train, whose 12-unit, vintage-car chain now snaked behind it, surmounted the deep, dark green mountain, covered with western hemlock and shore pine, as evidenced through the left coach windows. It yielded to the gray, lightly snow-covered Mine Mountain ahead, its jagged peaks partially obscured by the soft touch of marshmallow cloud puffs resting atop it. A cable car had once spanned the canyon to the silver mine's portal on the other side.

The two parallel mountains, descending into the gulch 1,000 feet below, formed a velvet green "v" whose base had been cut by the now-minuscule "slice" of light blue river.

Traversing the wooden trestle at Mile 16, the train plunged into the 250-foot-long Tunnel Mountain, the chasm of Glacier Gorge disappearing into it as the horizontal light beams cast on its granite walls flickered into progressive darkness at its center, leaving a dead, perceptionless, breath-inhibiting void.

Inspiration Point, at Mile 17.0 and 2,400-foot elevation, once again afforded breathtaking views of Mt. Harding and the Chilkat Range, while the train passed the branch track leading to the no-longer used cantilever bridge, which had been constructed in 1901 and had constituted the world's tallest such design at the time.

Swallowed again by the unpenetrable, sense-defying blackness of the 675-foot tunnel at Mile 18.8, the three-locomotive, 12-coach chain bored through the mountain, a path obviated by the circumventing suspension bridge prior to 1969, at which time it had closed.

The multiple-layer valley, draped in deep green, stretched out below on the left side.

Reducing speed to a crawl and threading its way through craggy rock walls, which appeared to scrap against the outside coach windows, the train inched past the sub-arctic pine toward the 2,865-foot White Pass Summit, named after Canadian Minister of the Interior Thomas White in 1887 and located on the US-Canada border, the narrow-gauge tracks multiplying into three branches. The locomotive gently griped its brakes and the 15-unit chain ceased motion in the cold, stark, thin air.

The silence, a sharp contrast to the steady buzz at its Skagway origin, almost screamed of the closed history chapter which had sparked the railroad's engineering feat, of the gold seekers who had once passed this way, but were no longer existent. It had been at the White Pass Summit where mounted police had cleared the thousands of stampeders, overburdened with their year's worth of supplies and gear needed for survival in the frigid north, to enter Canada and continue their expedition to the gold fields of the Klondike, in hopes of attaining wealth. Of the some 40,000 who had made the journey, only ten percent had actually discovered gold and of that, only a few hundred had actually fulfilled their dreams of becoming "rich."

For the others, the journey itself, and not the destination, had proven the ultimate value of the adventure. Like life, whose ultimate "purpose" remains elusive, it sometimes seems that the path followed to a destination offers a better reward than the destination itself. Yet, without anticipation of destination or purpose, it is unlikely that the trip would be undertaken at all. If anything, the gold rush had provided a life lesson.

Disconnecting and following the 1,296-foot-long spur line, the three locomotives reattached themselves to the (now) front of the train, pulling it over the White Pass Summit and commencing its gradual, path-retracing descent down the mountain toward Skagway. During the return journey, I would think about that lesson...

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Top Lake Tahoe Ski and Snowboard Resorts For Snowboard Parks

When thinking about snowboard trips to Tahoe, it's all about fun. But besides fun, thoughts of destination resorts' proximity to lodging and their location, and how busy the resorts are also factored in. These factors play a part in snowboard resort destination, but the main factor, as already stated, is fun.
And what's more fun than tearing up a snowboard park? Well, we can't think of much. Two resorts in the Tahoe area shine as prime spots for park shredding: Northstar at Tahoe and Boreal Mountain Resort. These two resorts are basically polar opposites - Northstar is a large resort with lots of runs, a hotel, condos for rent, and plenty of shops; basically it's a little village, and is called such. Boreal, on the other hand, is a small resort right off of Interstate-80, with the standard resort shops and services, lodge with food and bar, and a small, quaint mountain. What they both share, though, is fantastic snowboard parks
From rails, boxes, quarter pipes, half pipes, and large and small tables, you're sure to get your snowboard park fix at either Northstar or Boreal. Neither mountain is lacking at all in the park and jib feature department. Both resorts will have the typical park parking lot, and both have multiple parks with different features for all-day, or all-weekend fun, and enough features to keep you excited.
Where the difference lies, though, is in the size of the mountain. Boreal is a small mountain. The locals love it as it's close, convenient, and loads of fun. For those traveling great distances to ride, Northstar is a natural first choice as it's a larger mountain, and on-site lodging rules out any need to commute. And, taking into consideration that most travel with families, Northstar might have more to offer everyone. But size isn't necessarily a good thing - if you want to keep better track of your family without the aid of radios and smoke signals, you might want to head to Boreal instead.
What this really boils down to is whether you're looking for a large mountain everyone in the family can enjoy, or a smaller, quaint mountain that fills your simplistic needs, Tahoe has tons to offer. Great snow, great weather, and great people all work to make the Lake Tahoe area one of the best in the world for ski and snowboard vacations. Add in two great resorts with enough snowboard park features to whet your appetite, and you have a weekend, week, month, or more full of good times riding.


Reference : www.thaisabuy.com

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Sierra Tahoe Skiing Resort Information

Well some good news is that Sierra Tahoe resorts are some of the closest up the I-50 from Sacramento making national and international travel much more accessible. Most of the resorts average around 150 inches of snowfall a year, so expect plenty of snow for all the amazing terrain you'll encounter. The Tahoe region offers an assortment of runs for everyone from beginners to experts so there is something for everyone.

Sierra Tahoe ski area is a snowboarding and skiing destination in the area of Twin Bridges, California just to the south of lake Tahoe. The Resorts are about 16 miles south of the Stateline of Nevada on Highway 50. All the resort is contained in the Eldorado National Forest.

The majority of the ski resorts I have provided information on below are on the northern end of the lake around Truckee, California and Reno, Nevada. The exception for the Sierra Tahoe resorts would be Kirkwood, Heavenly, and Sierra-at-Tahoe which are located on the southern side of the lake about 75 miles from Reno Nevada. It's actually very common for skiers to stay around these three resorts when staying in the southern part of the lake and not make the trek to the northern lake resorts like Squaw Valley, Northstar, and sugar Bowl amongst others.

If you have made the choice to use your well earned vacation time for a ski vacation in the Sierra Tahoe region congratulation! This article is for those of you who want to get to know what resorts are available to you and some basic information on what to consider when planning you trip! First what resorts are in the Sierra Tahoe region, well you're in luck because there are quite a few and all with different atmospheres amenities to really customize you ski vacation!

1) Alpine Meadows Ski Resort (14Lifts) Elevation (6,895 ) Vert (1,800)

2) Boreal Mountain Resort (9 Lifts) Base Elevation (7,200 ) Vert (500 )

3) Diamond Peak Ski Resort (8 Lift) Elevation (6,700 ) Vert (1,840 )

4) Donner Ski Ranch (6Lifts) Base Elevation (7,000 ) Vert (750 Feet)

5) Heavenly Mountain Resort (34 Lift) Elevation (6,540 ) Vert (3,527 )

6) Homewood Mountain Resort (8 Lifts) Base Elevation (6,230 ) Vert (1,650 )

7) Kirkwood Mountain Resort (12 Lifts) Elevation (7,800 ) Vert (2,000 )

8) Mt. Rose-Ski Tahoe (7 Lifts) Base Elevation (7,900 ) Vert (1,800 )

9) Northstar Resort (17 Lifts) Elevation (6,330 ) Vert (2,280)

10) Sierra At Tahoe (10 Lifts) Elevation (6,640 ) Vert (2,212 )

11) Soda Springs Winter Resort (4 Lifts) Elevation (6,700 ) Vert (652 )

12) Spooner Lake Cross Country (0 Lifts) Elevation (7,000 ) Cross Country

13) Squaw Valley USA (34 Lifts) Elevation (6,200 ) Vert (2,850 )

14) Sugar Bowl Ski Area (12 Lifts) elevation (6,883 ) Vert (1,50 )

15) Tahoe Cross Country (3 Lifts) Elevation (6,500 ) Vert (cross Country)

Above all remember to enjoy your time and remember to relax no matter which resort you choice!