On Tuesday, Heavenly was closed again due to winds, so Hydle and I took a day off to get caught up on things. Tuesday night I had asked Daryl and Jess (my local friends who are watching my dog for me on this epic trip) if I could take them to a nice dinner, so we ended upgoing to our local nice restaurant called Evan’s. It was snowing outside, and we basically had the restaurant to ourselves – it was cozy and fun and the food was great!

Wednesday Hydle and I decided to get our hotel and rental cars booked for Michigan and Minnesota, so we spent the morning planning that, and then finally got our act together and headed for Hydle’s first day at Heavenly!

It was bluebird and beautiful out – we got to the mountain about 2, and spent some time at the observation deck first where Hydle managed to pose for one of the most glorious pics of him and his beard overlooking Lake Tahoe!

We cruised around the mountain for a few runs, the snow was pretty damn fun and it wasn’t crowded at all so we actually got to turn it on for once on our skis!

Once we got nice and cold, we headed to Tamarack Lodge for a round of drinks and snacks. Hydle was impressed with the lodge, and kept referring to it as the equivalent of another lodge at Vail in Colorado.

We had some fun with our waitress Geneva, and then as we were starting to close up so we could make it on the gondola ride down to enjoy the sunset, a ski patrol guy named Chris walked up to our table.

He introduced himself, and said “how would you guys like to take a cat ride to the top to check out the sunset?” Um, are you kidding me? Hell ya! Obviously we said yes, and Hydle asked if we could bring a beer on the ride and Chris said “of course you can!”

The ski patrol crew helped us board the snowcat literally named “The Beast” and our driver, also named Chris was awesome.

We cruised up the run to the top of Heavenly while the sun was setting. I still can’t really believe this happened to us, but then again, Hydle pointed out that I’m a lucky person which is true, so I guess it makes sense!

At the top the views were unbelievable – the sun was setting and making the clouds and mountain tops glow pink and orange, and we took a bunch of pics and videos up there.

Hydle captured one of the most incredible panorama pics I’ve ever seen. We had such a good time up there! Hydle already was saying Heavenly was exceeding his expectations and this was before the cat ride! Way to kill it Heavenly – very impressive and I was stoked for him to have such a perfect day for his first time out at Heavenly! Obviously we can’t wait to come back and ski the mountain when everything is open and kicking ass!

The colors from the sunset were still fading away on our gondola ride down which finished off the day perfectly, and then we headed into the village to have dinner, before heading home for an early night!

Thank you to Heavenly, all of the ski patrol and cat guys named Chris, and Operation Elevation for making this one of the best day’s of all time on the mountain, what a rad day!

Today we are heading back to Colorado, then Minnesota and Michigan this weekend, and then Europe on Tuesday!!