An IMLP Winter in California

http://www.flickr.com/photos/miheco/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Well, with Hanukkah upon us and with Christmas and New Years around the corner, I couldn't help but think about what the weather is going to be like in New York when I return for the holidays. As of now, it has rained for a grand total of 5 days spread across the entire 5 months I've been out here in California. The coldest it's been was around 40 degrees, and that's only at night and early mornings.

I am a winter person. I went to school in upstate New York, Syracuse University to be exact (GO CUSE!), and right around now, I would be trudging through 6 inches of snow to make my way to my last final of the semester. So naturally I miss the white stuff, especially because there are three small mountains within 45 minutes of the campus to ski on whenever you want.

To remedy this, a few of us California IMLP's at NBCU decided to go skiing. Yes, you can ski in California, and it's only about 2 hours north of where I live and work. Actually, there are some really great mountains on the West Coast.

We went to a closer mountain called Big Bear, which wasn't bad despite the weather conditions. To be honest, we might have gone too soon. We experienced every form of precipitation on the drive up, and while on the mountain. It was interesting conditions to ski in, to say the least. Raining on the base, sleeting halfway up, and foggy and snowing at the summit. We were told by some of the mountain's employees that by Christmas, they have so much snow that they have to close the mountain due to blizzards, so I guess it's finding the yearly sweet spot and hitting the slopes around then.

Well after a full day of skiing in crazy weather, if it wasn't pouring in LA, we probably could have stopped at the beach and relaxed in decently warm weather, considering it's the middle of December. Which would have been nice since I was more than tired.

Towards the end of the winter I will be testing the theory that while in California, you can go skiing in the morning and surfing in the afternoon on the same day. The results of this test may effect my decision on which coast to roll off program onto.