A Life Shaped by Mountains.
Ski Resorts. Snowboarding. Road trips. Reinvention.
This is the story of a life spent chasing mountains—and how it ultimately led to Torched Peaks.
Amidst the chaos of New Jersey's Action Park and the icy slopes of Vernon Valley, this is the story of a kid from Jersey whose love of snowboarding grew into a career in the ski industry. From building ski trails to bike parks and handcrafted trail maps, the mountains provided a livelihood and a calling. Front-row seats to snowboarding's rise, countless miles traveled, and the mountain adventures that would eventually inspire Torched Peaks.
1989 | Shawn Orecchio
words by Shawn Orecchio, Torched Peaks Founder.
I started snowboarding on Christmas Day of 1984 on the snow-covered hills of Northern New Jersey. It was the beginning of a lifelong journey that sparked a love for the mountains that continues to shape my life to this day.
When Winter Became Real.
I grew up in New Jersey, staring across the valley at a ski hill that might as well have been another world—the same chaotic stretch of land that housed the infamous Action Park amusement park. To me, it wasn’t the rides or the madness. It was the mountain. The snow. The whole strange little culture that came alive when winter hit.
Before the season even started, in those gray fall months, I’d stand at the living room window looking across the valley, waiting. Hoping. The resort sat quiet most days—but every now and then, the lights would flick on. That was the signal. Snowmaking was about to start. The guns would fire up, and just like that, winter was real again. I can still remember that feeling—ten years old, watching from a distance, completely locked in.
I was obsessed. Not casually interested—obsessed. I’d sit through the nightly news like it was must-see TV, waiting for any hint of a storm rolling in. Back then, Northern Jersey winters still delivered. Snow stuck around. It lingered. And when it didn’t, something felt off—like the season hadn’t shown up for work.
What really got me was that the mountain didn’t wait. They made their own snow. Out of nothing. That felt like cheating. Or magic. Either way, I couldn’t let it go.
So one winter—low snow, gray skies, not much to work with—I decided to figure it out myself. Built a snow gun for a science project. Garden hose, pressure washer, oil burner nozzles. No real understanding of how 'snowmaking' worked, just stubborn, relentless curiosity. First attempts? Ice. Solid, useless ice. But after enough trial, enough cold nights, something shifted. It started to snow.
Not much. Not perfect. But it was snow.
That was it. I didn’t just want to be in it—I needed to be around it, make it, chase it. Everything after that, including a career in ski resort operations, wasn’t really a decision. It was just the next logical step.
Christmas | 1984
1984 | Early snowboarding in New Jersey.
The first time I encountered snowboarding was watching a TV show featuring a “crazy new sport” emerging out of Vermont. Seeing these riders—the early Burton team—carve and surf down the mountain was pure bliss. I was fascinated and instantly hooked. As a determined but shy kid, I spent weeks calling every ski shop in the region trying to find a snowboard. Keep in mind, at the time, snowboards weren’t readily available in ski shops, and this was long before skate shops carried them—they were nearly impossible to find.
After countless phone calls, I finally got a lead on one of the few snowboards available anywhere in the New Jersey–New York metro area. The trail led to a ski shop in Denville, New Jersey—today it's a Billiard Towne, but in the mid-1980s it was one of the rare places willing to take a chance on this strange new sport.
I remember the moment like it happened yesterday.
I walked through the front door, took a quick look around, and there they were. Three or four snowboards standing together off to the side. All Burtons. A black Performer. A Burton Express 175. And a wooden Performer Elite painted fire-engine red.
I stopped in my tracks. To a twelve-year-old kid, they looked impossibly futuristic—something halfway between a surfboard, a skateboard, and a machine from another world. The smell of epoxy and laminates filled the shop. I studied every detail. Before anyone said a word, before I ever strapped one on, I knew. Whatever this was, it had my full attention.
The black Performer was the one I wanted. It looked fast. Cool. Untouchable. Unfortunately, it was also out of my price range. The red Performer Elite wasn't my first choice, but beggars can't be choosers.
I emptied my savings and pooled together every dollar of Christmas money my relatives had sent me that year. I can still remember my parents asking, "Are you sure you want to spend all your money on this?"
I knew. No hesitation.
Looking back, it still doesn't make much sense. I'd only seen a two-minute segment on television—the entirety of my exposure to snowboarding. No internet. No magazines. No friends who rode. Just a brief glimpse of something that caught hold of me and refused to let go.
When I walked out of that shop carrying that board under my arm, I felt ten feet tall. Looking back, it wasn't a snowboard I was carrying out the door. It was the first chapter of everything that came next.
Four decades later, that same model snowboard still hangs prominently on the wall of my office. It's rare and collectible, but its real value can't be measured. It reminds me of walking through the doors of that ski shop in Jersey and seeing those snowboards for the first time. At the time, it felt like excitement. Looking back, it was something much bigger. It was the moment the compass quietly changed direction.
Maiden Voyage.
My first attempts at snowboarding in 1984 started with a short, gentle hill behind my house. A slope that was so mellow that I was barely able to get any speed. What i didn't realize at the time, is that these attempts at snowboarding would later be recognized as some of the very first documented instances of snowboarding in the state of New Jersey.
Next, a few days later, I ventured to a significantly steeper and longer hill—behind the church at 68 Sand Hill Rd in Vernon, directly across the valley from Vernon Valley ski area.
My very first runs at the church involved bombing in a straight-line with reckless abandon. Those early attempts always ended with a spectacular crash at the bottom. Sometimes I was fortunate to crash before the swamp, others times I wasn't so lucky.
A week had gone by and gradually I learned to avoid falling at the bottom by making a long and sketchy turn using my toe edge. A few days later, the heel edge.
The days blurred together in a mix of falls, f-bombs, and small victories but what happened one evening became one of the most memorable and defining moments of my life.
Winter 1984 | The First Turns.
Alone, at the top of a hill that gave me battle scars, snow falling, mom’s voice echoing across the neighborhood -
"Shawn, get home - it's dark out!", she yelled.
"Just one last run!", I replied.
Determined to squeeze in one last try, it was this last run when something clicked - instead of straight-lining the entire hill like I had for weeks, for the first time I managed to link several consecutive turns and effortlessly surfed and floated down the entire powder covered hill.
I stood at the bottom. Standing. Proud and electric. A wooden time machine strapped to my feet, under a Jersey sky lit by the glow of a ski resort that hadn’t yet made peace with snowboarders.
As if the snow, the board, and my surroundings had woven into a tapestry of rebellion and liberation. It should have been pure adrenaline and joy, and mostly it was—but there was something else in it, too. Snowboarding was still new, still strange, and no one I knew really understood why it mattered to me. My parents were incredibly supportive, but to them my snowboard was a toy.
They called it a fad. Little did they know, it was a vehicle.
I stood there, alone, wishing I could share the moment with someone who got it—a simple high five. No soundtrack. No witness. Yet somehow, standing there, it felt like the center of the universe.
It wasn’t about the accomplishment. Not even close. It was something heavier than that—something that hit deeper than just making a few turns on snow. A kind of jolt. A quiet, undeniable holy shit. It was new, but it didn’t feel foreign—it felt right, like it had always been there waiting.
Even at twelve, I knew better. This party was just getting started, with or without you—I was now on a journey.
Snowboarding instantly got under my skin. Fast. Not just excitement—something closer to obsession. I didn’t just want to get better, I needed to understand it. To chase it. To keep pulling at whatever that feeling was until it made sense… or didn’t.
From that last run on, I was in. No hesitation. I soon graduated to snowboarding at local hills and golf courses, including the infamous Playboy Club, and even poached the ski trails at Vernon Valley (later Mountain Creek)—a full two years before the resort officially allowed snowboarding.
Heavenly, CA | 2023
Now, 40 years later, I think back to that night in 1984—just a kid, grinning ear to ear, full of hope, totally clueless about the chaos, joy, and obsession snowboarding was about to drag him into. Standing at the bottom of that hill on Sand Hill Road, I had no idea I was looking at the start of something that would quietly take over—something that would stick with me, shape me, mold a career, and, no matter what, still put a smile on my face every time I strap in my board.
Even now, at the end of every day on the mountain, I put skier superstition aside and call “last run”—a small, quiet and personal tribute to that night in 1984—my defining moment.
Dear Snowboarding: Thank you.
Through the highs, the lows, and everything in between, snowboarding was the constant when nothing else was. When relationships and friends faded. When family become memories. You stayed. You became the one thing I could rely on—the thing that got me moving and kept the fire burning.
Four decades later, it’s still the same. Arriving at any mountain—powder or ice, mellow glades or big lines—it doesn’t matter. Board strapped to my feet, that same feeling returns every time. Rock solid. Alive. Home.
A deep thank you to snowboard pioneers like Tom Sims, Jake Burton, Chuck Barfoot, and the early Tahoe crew who rode the line between rebellion and acceptance, took the hits, and fiercely pushed the sport forward. Their influence traveled from the biggest peaks to the smallest hills, inspiring kids like me everywhere to slide sideways.
Torched Peaks maps are the culmination of my experience in the ski industry, my deep passion for snowboarding and the mountains, and a drive to create unique art for skiers and snowboarders who share that love. They are a celebration of the peaks we live for and the fire burning inside that draws us back to them, run after run.
Ski seasons come and go. So does time.
Life has a way of changing the route. I'm still headed for the mountains.
- Shawn Orecchio
The Mountains Between.
The places, people, and moments that shaped the journey.
Hidden Valley, NJ | New Jersey's First Snowboarding Mountain.
A firsthand look at New Jersey’s earliest snowboard scene.
In the winter of 1985, snowboarding was still in its infancy, Hidden Valley in New Jersey had just begun allowing snowboarders on the mountain. In December of that year, I made my first attempts at resort riding on its icy slopes on a wooden Burton—no metal edges, just trial, error, and a lot of falling. I was riding alone at the time; none of my friends snowboarded yet, though I would occasionally spot a few other kids on the hill I didn’t know. In those early weeks, there were only three or four of us snowboarding at Hidden Valley—sometimes just two or three on a mountain built entirely for ski racing. We were outnumbered, no question. Lift lines, looks, comments—it all came with the territory. Conditions were rough, we were still figuring it out, and most days sat somewhere between fun, survival, and wondering if it was even worth it. This was still a full season—almost a year and a half—before Vernon Valley would open its lifts to snowboarders. Was it worth it?
It was pivotal. The answer was simple—I loved snowboarding too much to walk away. I had to keep going.
Later that winter, a ski racer at Hidden Valley who I knew from school saw me snowboarding and came over to talk. He was curious about it, wanted to try it himself. His name was Denis Connor. After ski racing practice, he’d grab his board (the first K2 Gyrator) and we’d ride together until last chair. Night after night. Once ski racing season ended, he never grabbed his ski's again.
Hidden Valley became our nightly playground. The slopes were steep and icy, with the hard, windswept blue ice that mid-Atlantic skiers know all too well. Quite often, we would go home smelling of diesel fuel, motor oil, and hydraulic fluid. The resort did its best, but our beloved slopes were frequently victims of mechanical failures—leaks from snowmaking guns, snowcats, and even chairlifts.
Adversity aside, we had a place to ride and plenty of fun to be had. Hidden Valley is where snowboarding truly got its mainstream start in New Jersey even though other resorts (Mountain Creek) frequently make that claim to fame.
1986 | The Perfect Storm: Snowboarding Comes to Vernon Valley Great Gorge.
A firsthand account of snowboarding's early years at Vernon Valley Great Gorge.
Poaching the slopes solo in 1984 was my first taste of Vernon Valley—albeit trespassing. By the early winter of 1985, I was part of a small crew that would hike up and ride the snowmaking piles at Vernon Valley Great Gorge before the lifts had even opened for the season. Snowboarding still wasn't allowed, but we befriended the mountain staff and did our best to convince them the sport was safe and could coexist with skiers.
Soon after, Vernon Valley (now Mountain Creek) finally opened its lifts to snowboarders—and just like that, we were in.
By the winter of 1986, I had become one of the earliest documented snowboarders riding the mountain regularly, Denis Connor being the second. Together, we were the OG snowboarders at Vernon Valley and skipping school to go snowboarding became a regular occurrence. During the first few weeks of that inaugural season, I was even hired to test other snowboarders before they were granted full access to the resort. Most mountains had programs like this, but it was wild that Vernon Valley trusted a 14-year-old with the job. It was a gig, a free ski pass, and most importantly, a place to ride—our playground, our proving ground, and the launchpad for New Jersey's snowboard scene.
Those early days were as brutal as they were exhilarating. Vernon Valley was the perfect storm: skier versus snowboarder, elite versus ruffian, old versus new, Taylor Ham versus Pork Roll—it had it all. Recent documentaries about Action Park capture some of the chaos at Vernon Valley, but they barely scratch the surface of the hijinks, the characters, and the ridiculous plots that unfolded on and off the mountain.
1989 | Vernon Valley, NJ
A dysfunctional home away from home.
1987–1989 | Vernon Valley - Chaos on the Slopes.
In those early years, I was among a growing group of snowboarders riding Vernon Valley regularly. By the second year, Denis and I were joined by other Vernon locals—John Brunner and Rick Garden among them. We rode together often. You’d see other snowboarders here and there as the sport slowly picked up, but our crew of four was there every day of the week.
Snowboarders were still a rarity. We stuck out like sore thumbs. Ski racers glared at us, mountain staff couldn’t quite decide where they stood, and every night the “Joeys” from NYC—rental skis, baggy Cavariccis, NY Jets or Giants Starter jackets—would roll in looking for trouble. We were outcasts, but we held our ground, laughed when we could, and stayed grateful the place even let us ride. Vernon Valley became our chaotic, dysfunctional home away from home.
Night skiing turned the mountain into a theater of madness. Nearly a thousand kids would show up every Thursday and Friday with little supervision, skis strapped to their feet, angst in their veins, and, for some, a bottle of parents’ borrowed alcohol tucked in their backpacks. The staff running the chairlifts, lodges, and cafeterias? Mostly high schoolers themselves. The lunatics were running the asylum, and we were right in the middle of it. The air smelled of diesel and motor oil, underscored by the piercing roar of hundreds of snowmaking guns. The icy slopes rattled beneath our boards. It was wild, messy, exhilarating—and absolutely unforgettable.
Vernon Valley wasn’t known for its skiing terrain, but it would later be recognized for its pivotal role in snowboarding’s evolution. The early scene we built there became the foundation for a vibrant culture, and the resort eventually gained fame for its terrain parks and progressive features that drew riders from across the East Coast.
We were the original snowboarders in New Jersey, carving out our own path and shaping the sport’s early scene. Vernon Valley would go on to produce incredible talent, including 2002 Olympic Silver Medalist Danny Kass, but for us, those first days were about discovery, liberation from skiing, a touch of rebellion, and the sense of belonging to something we all believed was about to be big—though none of us knew yet just how big it would become.
1989 | Tahoe or bust.
Watching early snowboard videos like The Western Front (1989) hit me like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. Here were guys like Terry Kidwell, Shaun Palmer, Damian Sanders—shredding massive cliffs, launching off cornices, making snowboarding look like pure madness. They were superstars to me, larger than life. Most of these early videos were filmed at Squaw Valley, far from the icy East Coast slopes I knew. The mountains, the snow, the fear of missing out—it called to me. Getting to Squaw became an obsession for an entire summer—I couldn’t wait to leave the green pastures of Jersey behind. I’d been competing on the East Coast for a few years by then, racking up wins and podium finishes in freestyle and alpine racing competitions. But at 17, with just a few hundred dollars to my name, it was time to leave the familiar behind. I headed west, ready to test myself and get this party started!
The transition from East to West felt oddly poetic. Tahoe’s peaks were bigger, steeper, lines were higher risk than anything I’d ridden—but I adapted fast, it wasn't scary, and Squaw became home, familiar. I was fortunate to pick up new sponsors almost immediately—free gear, clothing, and eventually a modest paycheck. I was among the very first American snowboarders to be picked up and fully sponsored by Hot Snowboards, an up-and-coming alpine company based in France. When the first Hot Logical snowboards landed on the shores of the US, the boards were revolutionary at the time.
Cross M Snowboard Team.
Within weeks I landed a spot on the Cross M Team, after the coach at the time spotted me laying down carves at Boreal. At the bottom of a run, “Hey, kid, who are you?” he asked. I didn’t know who he was at the time—he had red hair, a huge red goatee, and for a brief second I thought it was Layne Staley from Alice in Chains - no kidding. I shrugged and responded with a Jersey swagger. “I’m Shawn. Uh… why?”
He introduced himself as Jerry, the former Burton coach who had started his own training program. “Do you race?” he asked. “Yeah, I just moved from Jersey a few weeks ago.” “Jersey???” he said, with a snicker, “Jersey?” He told me about the program, and offered me a spot—I was in, my dream coming true. Just getting the call was enough—a badge of honor. The team included riders like Mike Jacoby and Tara Eberhard—names I'd spent years watching in snowboard videos, people who existed somewhere between athletes and mythology. A few days later, I was training with the team at Donner Ski Ranch. Bashing gates. Getting yelled at. Trying to stake my claim. The whole thing moved with the strange pace of a dream—too fast to fully process, too good to question. One day I was a kid from Jersey. The next I was living the dream on Donner Summit.
My time on the team was short—one season—but Jerry left an impression that’s stuck with me ever since. He taught a few simple lessons about balance points—not balancing your body, but understanding the edge of control. “The best athletes aren’t always the most gifted,” he said. Meaning, the most successful racers aren’t reckless—they know exactly how fast they can go without falling. The farther you push your balance point, the faster you go, the more often you win. I learned this lesson while training Slalom at Donner Ski Ranch. I remember that day like it was yesterday—Jerry yelling at me to go faster, every run, faster. I was humiliated, angry, but vigilant. Training alongside World Cup racers I was intimidated and still trying to prove a kid from Jersey belonged. So I pushed, faster and faster, every run faster… until I didn’t. I clipped a gate, took out a few other gates, and fell. On the ground, thinking I'm about to be chastised, Jerry walks over, looks me in the eye, and said simply: “Congrats—you've only been on the team a few days, but on your last few runs, up against world cup racers, you've been the fastest on course today—if this was race day, you won. That’s your balance point.” Simple, brutal, invaluable and I've applied this principal to many things in life ever since.
Arriving in Tahoe that season changed everything. A place to crash in Truckee, free snowboard gear, season passes to almost every resort in Tahoe, parties, and first chair every day—mountain life was good.
After that first winter, I settled into a rhythm that would define the next several years. Summers back in Jersey. Winters in Tahoe. I'd work at Action Park all summer, save every dollar I could, then point myself west again when the snow started falling. Rinse and repeat.
Risky? Sure—moving back and forth across the country at an early age—but the lessons, the mistakes, the wins, the freedom—they were priceless. I wouldn’t trade a second of it.
Along the way I picked up sponsors. Apocalypse Snowboards, then Hooger, and eventually Santa Cruz. Riding for Apocalypse was particularly memorable. The company was founded by French snowboarding legend Regis Rolland, whose influence on the sport was impossible to ignore. The Apocalypse factory sat in Ellenville, New York, barely ninety minutes from my hometown, and I'd make the trip often—picking up equipment, attending meetings, hanging around the factory, and staying connected.
Competition? I wasn’t a superstar—I wish I would have applied myself more. Dozens of top-three finishes in the Mid-Atlantic, Vermont, and California, a top-ten at Nationals, a qualification for the U.S. Open—that was my glory. But the real reward was the mountains themselves: riding the peaks I'd only seen in videos, the endless Tahoe sky, the characters I met, and the chance to keep chasing something that had gotten under my skin years earlier standing on a snowy hill in New Jersey.
That’s what I wanted. That’s what I chased.
U.S. Grand Prix of Snowboarding | Mountain Creek
LOVE WHERE YOU WORK.
After a stint riding professionally and traveling to mountains across the country, I took a break from snow sports and developed a career in accounting. I didn’t have a boss named Lumbergh, but every workday was very much a case of the Mondays. Living a life that mimicked Office Space, I quickly learned that life wasn’t meant to be spent in a cubicle. Seeking a change in the early 2000s, I found my way into the ski industry, where my passion for mountain resorts quickly became the driving force behind my career. I developed a deep love for mountain operations, gaining hands-on experience in ski trail design, snowmaking, grooming, and overseeing the design and management of award-winning terrain and bike parks.
The origin of the JibLab at Mountain Creek.
In 2003, I conceptualized the JibLab, an on-site fabrication center at Mountain Creek that operated year-round to produce innovative terrain park rails, jibs, and features—the first facility of its kind on the East Coast. JibLab was an experimental fabrication hub where we designed hundreds of terrain park features, including a “T”-style park box—the first of its kind—which was later widely adopted and still used to this day at nearly every resort around the world. At one point, the terrain park I designed and managed ranked among the top 15 in North America and even hosted the U.S. Olympic Qualifiers.
At first, the goal wasn’t fame or flash. It was survival—and pride. I wanted to create a place where Jersey kids could actually progress, a park they could claim as their own. Because if you’re from Jersey, you already know: people love to shit on you just for where you’re from. The early years were a grind. Then we started investing—building unique features, throwing innovative events, pushing harder and bucking the status quo. You could feel something shifting.
The jersey. sticker.
One night, after hours, I walked into the resort's sign shop and made twenty stickers. They said one thing: jersey. Period. No logo. No explanation. They spread fast. Before “viral” had a name. Management wanted to sell them. I said no. Make 100's more of them, don’t market them. If someone asks, they get one. They wanted the period gone. Absolutely not. The period was the point.
It wasn’t a corporate promo—it was a statement. Jersey pride. A quiet middle finger to anyone who didn’t get it. Soon they were everywhere—boards, helmets, cars rolling up and down the East Coast. Jersey had arrived. No trophy for it—but we turned a a forgotten hill into a park mecca.
Mountain Creek Terrain Parks | Where rebellion turned into craft.
We didn’t have the luxury of great terrain or abundant snow. So we built terrain parks that forced creativity. We turned tiny vertical into laboratories. We made style matter more than size. We were disruptors before it became fashionable.
The proximity to NYC was the DNA. Beastie Boys blaring in the lodge. Skate style in the park. Attitude from the streets bleeding into the snow. The Jersey scene wasn’t a watered-down version of Vermont. It was sharper. Bolder. Louder. More confrontational. It had something to prove. And did.
Creek became a stage where kids figured out who they were. Where rebellion turned into craft. Where chaos turned into culture.
Sometimes the most important movements don’t start in beautiful places. They start in rough ones.
From the slopes to the launch pad, I eventually found myself building mountain-inspired brands, events, and experiences—driven by a mountain life I never really outgrew. Diablo Freeride Park came first. What began as a collection of ideas borrowed from terrain parks, feature building, and years spent immersed in mountain culture grew into a destination that drew riders from around the world. For ten years, hundreds of thousands of mountain bikers came to the same mountain where I had spent my youth chasing winter.
The bikes were different approach. The spirit wasn't.
Diablo didn't become what it became because we followed a blueprint. There wasn't one. We had a vision, a willingness to challenge convention, and a stubborn belief that riders were looking for something that didn't yet exist. There were plenty of obstacles along the way—from industry skeptics to operational realities—but we kept moving forward, building, adapting, and, in many ways, writing the rules as we went. What emerged was more than a bike park. It became a scene, a proving ground, and a gathering place for riders who shared the same passion for progression and mountain culture.
Projects like the U.S. Open of Mountain Biking and other ventures would grow from that same foundation: build something authentic, and people will find their way to it.
Palisades Tahoe | Cornice II
The Long Detour Home.
After more than a decade building a life on the East Coast, Tahoe was still there—lingering in the background. The peaks, the lake, the sense of possibility they carried. Quietly waiting.
New Jersey had given me everything: friends, opportunity, hard lessons, a career, and more stories than I could ever tell. It wasn’t a place I wanted to leave. I loved the attitude, the energy, the characters, the pizza, the grit. It runs through my veins. But every winter, every glance west reminded me of something unfinished. The mountains that had shaped me never really left.
Around that time, I was still building a life on paper that looked fine.
Business was doing well. I had just bought a new car. I was recently divorced—amicable—from a wonderful woman I met while working at Mountain Creek. Nothing was broken in any obvious way. And still, something felt off. Like I was standing still in a life that was supposed to be moving.
So one morning, I packed the car. Top down. Backpack in the back seat. No plan. No itinerary. Just motion. Just distance. Just me.
A week later, I found myself in 3,000 miles away in Whistler, British Columbia.
I landed in the middle of a mountain bike festival and convention that felt less like celebration and more like a slow-moving funeral dressed up as industry. Hobnobbing with professionals—something I've loathed my entire life—felt like watching a quiet, exhausting competition in ego and positioning. A kind of dreadful performance I didn’t recognize myself in. Too many clowns, not enough circuses.
I didn’t stay long. Trip cut short. But I wasn’t ready just yet to go back to Jersey.
So I kept moving. Down the coast. Eventually highway 89. The same 89 that eventually bends toward Tahoe.
And then it hit me—I hadn’t been back in over a decade. I said fuck it. I’m going.
Speeding through the cuts and curves of the northern Sierra, it stopped being a drive and became something else entirely. A pull. A return I hadn’t fully admitted I was making.
Lassen. Downieville. Truckee. Brockway Summit. And then, for the first time in ten years, that first glimpse of Lake Tahoe—cold, still, impossible to misread.
I rolled into Kings Beach, parked the car, and walked straight to the water. No ceremony. Just instinct. I dipped my toes in.
And like so many other sharp moments in my life, it landed instantly. I didn’t think it—I knew it. I needed to be here.
Just like walking out of that ski shop in Denville years earlier, holding a snowboard I probably shouldn’t have bought, feeling ten feet tall for no rational reason at all.
Same feeling. Different decade.
That trip came first. The decision came later.
In 2011, I left behind a business I loved, a home, family, friends, security, and the only life I had known as an adult. Everything.
Looking back, it felt a lot like that moment in Denville. The consequences were bigger. The risks were real. But the feeling was the same.
I knew.
So I pointed myself west and returned to Lake Tahoe.
It was time.
Home isn’t always where you’re from. Sometimes it’s the place that never stopped calling.
