12 hounds expectantly left Worcester for this year's trip, 6 by minibus and 6 by car. The minibus transported the lads, these being Anton, Bud, Carpy, Hensh, Martin the Fireman and Maz, the couples were Tank and Ange, Matt and Lorna Jenks and Nick and Maria Martin. There were a few minor traffic delays on the way but everyone arrived at Heathrow in good time. As Turkey was not with us this year there was no one you could rely on to do really daft things, however, at Heathrow, Hensh admirably assumed the Turk role by gathering up most, but not all of his bags, and heading for the terminal leaving a rucksack on the bus. Thankfully the bus had only just started its journey back to Worcester when Hensh's Turkism was discovered and Maz called the driver to request he return to the airport. Check in was remarkably swift for a flight to the US but unfortunately the hounds seat allocations were not in a pre-booked block as had been expected. The Jenks really hit the jackpot on the seat front as a Lebanese woman with a streaming cold and germs aplenty insisted on taking her allocated seat next to Lorna. The plane was not full but the woman flatly refused to take another seat and allow Jenks to sit next to his wife. Needless to say Matthew was extremely unimpressed by the woman's attitude and was particularly vocal in his condemnation of her actions. After the seating shenanigans the long flight to San Francisco was fairly stress free. Upon arrival in the US we naturally awaited the connecting flight to Reno by sampling the local gassy, discoloured dishwater they call beer. The short hop up to Reno was about 35-40 minutes followed by a 75 minutes bus ride through the mountains into the resort. We arrived at the hotel at 11:00pm local time after 22 hours travelling. Everyone was naturally keen to get their heads on the pillow. There were no room upgrades available and everyone had rooms in a separate annexe at the rear of the hotel. The rooms were not huge but the beds were big and comfortable allowing everyone that wanted a bed to themselves to get one. This was a very significant point considering events of the previous year in Colorado. Martin had drawn the short straw in sharing with Anton who, as usual, each night staked his claim to the North American snoring volume record. Wisely, Martin had equipped himself with industrial earplugs, an absolute necessity to enable sleep within close proximity of Anton.

The weather forecast had been for overnight snow but everyone woke on day 1 (Thursday) to find no further white stuff had been forthcoming. It was hardly needed anyway as the region had experienced massive snowfalls over the previous weeks and all reports we had seen suggested there was plenty of snow up the mountain. The day was cool with broken cloud and everyone headed off up the gondola to get acquainted with the local area. Passage was made very easy by the location of the new (built in the last 3 years) gondola base station being only 5 minutes walk from the hotel. Heavenly is a large pisted area that spans the state line from California into Nevada. The runs of Killebrew, Mott Canyon and Gunbarrels provide a stiff test but aside from those Heavenly is largely a general purpose, all-abilities kind of resort. After a fairly sedate first day a visit to the hotel bar was inevitable and it was here that we met bar manager Richard the Jock. Rich was a jovial Scot, originally hailing from Ayr, who always had plenty to say for himself. Rich had been living in the states for 7 years and was able to provide some good local knowledge. Of particular interest was the news that it was possible to ski back to the hotel removing the necessity for a return journey on the gondola. The skiable route down was apparently via a long, unpatrolled off-piste route accessible by a fire gate at the top of the mountain. Needless to say Carpy, Bud and Martin were most keen to check out this alternative route home which naturally reminded us of their experience the previous year in Keystone when they were escorted off the mountain by the Colorado state piste police while exploring an off-piste wooded area. Everyone except Tank and Ange and Nick and Maria ate at a local steak house. As usual Tank was in no mood to delay eating for longer than was absolutely necessary and had previously headed off to a local casino to sample their fayre. Following a fairly average but expensive meal the main body of hounds headed off to Mr P's pub that turned out to be one of the few bars/live music venues in town that wasn't in some way connected to a casino. The band on at P's were OK without being spectacular and Anton, being the Trekkie that he is, insisted that the lead singer looked like a Romulan. We had to take his word for that one.

Day 2 (Friday) was also spent at Heavenly under total cloud cover. This day was pretty cold and ultimately turned out to be the coldest day of the trip. This fact was particularly unfortunate for Hensh and Maria who had become separated from the rest of the group and had to hang around in the cold for 40 minutes at the bottom of a hill waiting for the rest of the guys to find them. The location of the fire gate that had been mentioned the previous evening by Rich in the bar was also discovered, a discovery made without the help of any of the lift operators or local ski guides, all of whom denied any knowledge of the existence of such a gate. Bud, Carpy and Martin ventured forth through the gate that had a big red sign declaring it was a decision point and that by passing through the gate, you may die. The run involved traversing deep snow to a point adjacent to the gondola path and then heading down the mountain in more deep snow through the trees. After a lengthy run through the trees it then emerged onto the narrow mogul field directly beneath the gondola which levelled off onto what appeared to be farm land containing the obligatory snarling dog. Thankfully, while it was alone, the dog appeared content to make a lot of noise without actually investigating the skiing intruders more closely. The stretch beyond the farm brought you to the edge of the road directly opposite the hotel. Bud, Carpy and Martin completed the run within an hour having experienced a few hairy moments on the way but all got down in one piece. The lads and The Jenks ate at Applebee's, a TGI Friday's style establishment, which was pretty unspectacular. However, the Margarita's were quite pleasant especially as they were served in what appeared to be large bowls with stems rather than glasses. After the meal everyone headed up town and happened to pass Mr P's pub again where the live music sounded worthy of further investigation, we found that The Trey Stone Band were playing. Trey Stone had been a member of Sly and The Family Stone in the 70's and he turned out to be a pretty slick blues guitar player with great vocals to match. His suitably mulletted keyboard player reminded us several times that Mr. Stone was a Grammy award winner and after hearing him perform it was easy to see why. After Mr P's, Bud, Carpy, Hensh and Maz headed for the casino and had some fine fun at a blackjack table with a little Polish dealer. The dealer patiently tried to explain the rules of the game, while deflecting repeated questions from the lads about her attire, or rather why she wasn't wearing the skimpy silver uniform many of the other dealers were wearing. The suited and booted table managers were soon taking an interest when they realised that the table dealer was engaged in far more banter than potential revenue earning blackjack playing. The manager's interest in the table became considerably more focused when Carpy knocked over a Jack Daniels and Coke which quickly spread over the playing surface, soaked several of the deck of cards and flowed into the trays of playing chips. The manager was not impressed and informed the lads that it was the third time that evening he had had to clean up such a mess as he painstakingly replaced the wet cards, scraped ice cubes off the table, mopped up and individually cleaned each chip and their trays. Shortly after the clean-up operation was complete the lads decided to leave with Bud about $200 richer than when he walked in, the majority of which was Maz and Hensh's money.

Day 3 was Saturday and there had been a plan to go to Kirkwood to avoid the weekend crowds in Heavenly. However, owing to a communication breakdown the plan fell apart. Heavenly did not turn out to be as crowded as we expected. The weather was glorious, which was to become the standard for the rest of the week, and a pretty uneventful days skiing was had primarily over on the Nevada side of the border. Bud, Carpy and Martin braved the firegate run for a second time and managed to get down in about 45 minutes. Carpy reported conditions on the run to be at their very best.

Cheap and cheerful was the meal decision for this particular evening and after a few beers with Rich in the hotel bar we headed out to a Mexican McDonalds style eatery close to the hotel. Our expectations were met perfectly by this establishment but the food was fine if not most elegantly served. Carpy was by now suffering from rear end problems, which had not been helped by the Mexican; this resulted in several unplanned visits to various venues in search of the men's lavatorial facilities. Fire and Ice was the first port of call, which was packed followed by Bill's Bar. Bill's Bar is a sort of "Casino Lite" frequented by all the local Chavs. The band playing was pretty diabolical and included guest singers that reminded us all of our mothers. Finally we ended up in Caesars Casino for the grand finale of Gay and Lesbian week. The geriatric band with bad 70's haircuts soon tapped into the mood and started churning out material suitable for the audience present and we witnessed much entertaining cavorting round the dance floor by girls who just like being girls (debatable in some cases)

So the general impression after 3 days in California was that Heavenly was an extensive ski area with some decent runs but we needed to go elsewhere to find some new challenges. One thing that had struck all of us about Heavenly was how archaic the lift systems were. Extremely slow, very rarely with footrests and a large proportion without even safety bars. The lack of speed of the lifts resulted in it taking forever to get from bottom to top of the mountains, especially on the longer runs. The result was a very poor "skiing time" to "sitting on the lift time" ratio.

Away from the slopes too much of the apres-ski and social facilities revolved around the Casinos. There were very few independent bars, restaurants & clubs to offer some diversity of dining and entertainment. Someone suggested that the Casinos ran the town, and we all thought they probably did.

Day 4 (Sunday) was a sunny day and all of the hounds with the exception of Tank and Ange headed off to Kirkwood in 2 taxis. Kirkwood is about an hours drive from Heavenly and we had been told that even though it was a much smaller area it had far steeper slopes and was therefore more suited to advanced skiers. As we had hoped Kirkwood was not too crowded and had some really nice runs. The weather was stunningly good again and all the hounds tans were coming along nicely. The forecast was for much of the same for the rest of the week which naturally raised questions about how long the snow was going to last.

We thought the lift systems at Heavenly were poor but Kirkwood was considerably worse. The UK health and safety authorities would have had a field day here. In the evening back in Heavenly we ate in The Wrap Shop, a small place close to the hotel that had previously been discovered by Bud and Carpy. The place serves exotic combinations served in tortilla wraps and great coffee. After a couple of beers in the hotel bar the evening was spent at Sam's bar which was a taxi ride out of town. Sam's Bar was run by a friend of Rich's from the hotel and Rich regularly arranged trips out to Sam's for visitors. The lovely Amy was a wonderful host and in addition to serving up anything from the array of beers and spirits on offer she patiently explained, to those were interested, primarily Anton, about how to lose your money in the poker video games that were sunk into the bar. The bar was well stocked with every weird spirit you could imagine which was particularly unfortunate for participants of the pool tournament who downed a shot, chosen by the losers, after each game.

Day 5 (Monday) was again gloriously sunny and half of the hounds (the lads) chose to ski in Heavenly while the other half (the couples) chose to go shopping. The lads had a slow start with one or two feeling the effects of the previous evenings post pool match excesses. The morning skiing was fairly sedate and we were starting to see evidence of the down side of the constant high temperatures with the occasional rock or piece of undergrowth appearing through the surface of the packed snow. A good lunch followed where it was decided to head straight for the fire gate to the big run down to the hotel. Maz and Hensh joined Bud, Carpy and Martin and the five of them got down in reasonable time despite a few hairy moments, particularly for the run virgins, Maz and Hensh.

After a quick shower and change the lads took a couple of cabs to a nearby factory outlet to take advantage of the cheap prices and favourable dollar rate.

The couples had hired a people carrier, driven by Jenks, and headed off towards Reno. On arrival at the shopping malls Jenks completed all his shopping in 20 minutes and then had to hang around for the rest of the day waiting for everybody else. As the designated driver of the hire car there was no possibility of him sliding off for a beer and therefore he not only remained bored but also remained completely sober. On their way back to Heavenly they were delayed in Carson City (Nevada state capital), apparently because the Wells Fargo bank had been held up. It's not everyday that you can say that you had been prevented from getting on with your day because the Wells Fargo had been held up in Carson City.

Within Harvey's Casino was a Hard Rock Café and it was here that the lads ate, the couples choosing to eat elsewhere. After the meal the lads + the Jenks headed to Cabo Wabo, a basement bar located in Harveys Casino. Cabo Wabo is owned by rock star Sammy Hagar who occasionally performs at the venue himself. The walls were adorned with photographs of Hagar on stage in the club along with the stadium shots of his performances fronting Van Halen. Unfortunately for us (arguably) the next Hagar performance was not scheduled until the end of April and instead we suffered a pretty poor one-man band playing along to backing tracks.

On day 6 (Tuesday) we had an early start to catch the bus to Northstar. Yet again it was sunny but when we first hit the slopes the sun had not yet had time to soften up the top cover of snow and we found it to be very crusty. Perhaps the less than ideal surface was a factor in the slopes being virtually empty and we skied for most of the morning hardly seeing another soul on the mountain. After lunch the sun had softened the snow and a lot more people appeared, most skiing in T-shirts and some even topless (unfortunately all male).

The Northstar ski instructor team provide free group lessons on selected afternoons and we were fortunate to be there on a day when such lessons were available. Anton and Hensh took advantage of the free lessons in a group of about 10 or 12 oddballs (mainly Americans) including a woman who skied with a coyote on her head. With a group of such size there was no possibility of one-to-one teaching but they both felt it was worthwhile and proceeded to bore everyone else for the rest of the day with details of the exercises and tips they had picked up.

We waited for the bus to take us back to Heavenly in the semi-permanent tented area at the foot of the mountain. The tented structures, containing bars etc., had been erected for the season while major construction projects continue to build a large accommodation complex with leisure facilities and shops. While have a couple of beers we watched the construction workers adding the roof to what will be an impressive development. The new facilities will certainly go a long way to putting Northstar on the map as a major tourist attraction for the Tahoe area for next season and beyond.

In the evening the 6 lads wandered into Big Dogs Pizza House and ordered 6 pizzas. Such an order would not be deemed unreasonable in the UK, however, Big Dogs serve big pizzas, 14 inches wide to be exact, and we were immediately advised by the barman to reduce our order from 6 to 4. This turned out to be good advice as several slices of pizza was left over after everyone had become completely stuffed.

We then all waddled over to Mr. P's where we were surprised to find an extremely poor offering of live music from a couple of old guys who would have been more suited to playing lounge lizard style in a large hotel foyer. This was most surprising as we had come to expect a decent standard of live music at Mr. P's.

Harvey's casino was the final port of call where a few bucks were frittered away at the tables.

Day 7 (Wednesday) was yet another gloriously sunny day and the majority headed up the local slopes of Heavenly to enjoy a pretty uneventful day. Anton and Hensh chose to rest their weary bones and engage in a little retail therapy. They hired a car and headed off to the huge malls located in the Reno area. Anton in particular gave his credit card a seriously hard time returning with enough gear to open his own clothing and footwear shop.

The evening held the prospect of something different in the form of a stand-up comedy show at Horizons casino. Greg Proops, an American comedian well known in the UK for his role in Channel 4's "Whose Line Is It Anyway" show was the star attraction and the lads and Tank and Ange swelled the audience in the moderately sized casino theatre.

A few beers at the now familiar territory of Mr. P's was followed by a relatively early night in preparation for an early start in the morning.

The early start on day 8 (Thursday) was to catch a bus to the other side of the lake to Squaw Valley. On the bus we were accompanied by a number of older generation Americans who wasted no time in cracking open bottles of wine for distribution among themselves as soon as the bus left Heavenly, which was still well before 8:00am. It was noticeable that it was the women more than the blokes that were keen to get stuck into the early morning booze.

When we arrived at Squaw Valley we were yet again greeted by glorious sunshine and found the skiing to be superb. The ski area is situated in a large bowl on the North side of Lake Tahoe and there appeared to be more snow that we had left behind in Heavenly. We experienced the highest winds of the week at the summit of the Squaw mountains. On a couple of occasions we needed to make a quick decent from the top to escape being pelted in the face by hard wind blown ice particles. This same wind also made lunch more interesting as we chose to eat outside on the deck of one of the higher restaurants. Trays of food were being tossed around the mountain top tables and Anton suffered most when one landed in his lap.

After a great days skiing, a mosey round the shops and a beer listening to the blues band in one of the open air bar frontages we headed back to the bus for the short ride down to the edge of lake Tahoe to board the Tahoe Queen. The Tahoe Queen is a Mississippi built paddlewheel steamer with a passenger capacity of 500 on 3 decks. On board we enjoyed several beers on the top deck in the sun then headed downstairs for a meal in the restaurant area. As the on-board live band struck up, the wrinklies we had shared the early bus with flocked onto the floor. Somehow we managed to resist the temptation to join them!

After docking on the South shore of Lake Tahoe the bus met us and transported us back to the hotel. After a quick shower and change we made a return trip to Cabo Wabo where we thankfully we found the band decidedly better than the previous visit to the venue. After another whirl around the casino tables we ended up in a karaoke bar at Caesar's casino.

Day 9 (Friday) was our last skiing day and it was spent in the now very familiar surroundings of Heavenly. In the morning we headed over to the Nevada side of the mountain for a final run around the Mott Canyon area. After the exceptionally hot week the area was in need of some new snow. We found numerous thin patches and protruding rocks of varying sizes. For lunch we joined the Caribbean party at Snow Beach where we secured and strategically positioned a few easy chairs and enjoyed the Californian sun for the last time for an extended period. The last run of the trip really had to be the fire gate run and Bud, Carpy, Hensh and Martin stepped through the gate for the final time. There was still plenty of snow on the run but the effect of the prolonged sunshine had changed the consistency of the snow dramatically. In some places it was like skiing on sticky sugar. The glue-like conditions and frequent stops to allow Hensh to dig himself out of a hole or tree was never going to make for a fast decent. However, the thing that really slowed things down was the decision to try and find an alternative skiable route to avoid a yomp across the now snow-free farmyard. Martin became separated from the group and headed off to the West behind the farm house while Bud, Carpy & Hensh, realising they had lost Martin, headed North until they came to the farm boundary. They then headed back East ending up virtually where they had started considerably more knackered than when they had first left the trail. This left no alternative but to remove skis and yomp through the farmyard. As we approached the gate we were greeted by a much more active farm dog than we had seen previously and his mate, another dog who was certainly not content to lie down and howl, he wanted to get close to the intruders and see what they were all about. It was an uneasy trek through the farmyard being closely tracked by the very vocal dogs but we made it to the other side. Back at the hotel we found Martin who had managed to ski all the way back to the road but in doing so had tracked so far to the West that he emerged 2 blocks away and had to walk back up the road to find the hotel. After a couple of beers at Fire & Ice, a little last minute shopping and a mad packing session we had a few beers in the hotel bar with Rich. The lads had been recommended by the couples to check out the Casino Buffet on the top floor of Hurrah's casino. Unfortunately we were unaware that the buffet adhered strictly to the American preference of eating early and closing early, when we arrived at exactly 9:00pm we found the place to be closed. After a skirt around the town to find most places full we ended up in Applebees again. This did not turn out to be a bad thing as we enjoyed a decent meal. A final couple of beers in the hotel bar followed and then it was off to bed in preparation for the early start in the morning.

Saturday morning we left the hotel for the airport at 5:00am. Our transport was 3 taxis rather than a bus which made the journey more comfortable. The short Reno to San Francisco flight was straightforward and with our bags checked straight through to Heathrow we had a couple of spare hours in San Francisco before the long flight home. Most of this time was spent sleeping, eating, shopping and texting folks at home to try and find out the rugby and football results. The flight to London was fully booked which assured some lively debate among passengers and a round of musical chairs before departure. Thankfully everyone ended up reasonably happy with their seats.

On arrival back at Heathrow early on Sunday morning the couples separated to find their cars and the lads met up with Dave and the bus for the ride home to Worcester.

All the lads had attended the previous years Breckenridge tour and were therefore able to draw comparisons between the two North American adventures. Overall it was agreed that the preference was for Colorado over California. The ski areas of Breckenridge, Keystone, and Vail were not hugely different to those of Heavenly, Squaw, Kirkwood and Northstar. The ski areas of Breckenridge, Keystone and Vail were not hugely different to those of Heavenly, Squaw, Kirkwood and Northstar, however, Keystone did offered the option of night skiing which was not available in the Tahoe area. The diversity of the Breckenridge environment with more variety of eating venues and entertainment also contributed to making it the favoured destination. The people of Colorado were also felt to be more welcoming than the Californians.

So, another year over and talk rife already about next year checking out the skiing across the North American border in Canada….... bring it on.