Well, we did it! We survived another year of the Santa Pub Crawl. This year the Reno Santa Pub crawl gang added a Santa Ski Day at Mt. Rose. Unfortunately, the whole weekend took place during the biggest snow storm of the year so far, and Santa turnout on the slopes was pretty low. I spoke with Mt. Rose marketing director Mike Pierce, decked out in his Santa suit and snowboard, and he said Rose will most likely do it again next year. That means CHEAP lift tickets for all you santas, so pack the skis and boards next year and make a long weekend of it.

And a long weekend it was. Snow was dumping the whole time, so between grueling (and fun) early season powder days, I managed to squeeze in a night of Santa mischief during what is my favorite bar night of the year. I was not actually shooting this event for anyone this time. I only brought my camera along because my wife wanted to take pictures, and her skimpy burlesque Santa’s helper suit, alas, had no pockets. But after a few drinks and the midnight gathering under the arch, the worlds largest Santa on Santa snowball fight happened. It was great. The street cleared, people took sides, snowballs flew forth across Virginia street, and a few crazies ran “The gauntlet of death” down the center of the road, finally providing a reachable target (besides me and my camera) for the hundreds of snowball throwers. Good times, then two feet of powder at Mt. Rose the next day to wake me from my stupor. Good weekend! If you don’t know about the Santa Pub Crawl, Reno’s event is supposedly the largest in the nation. Hotel rooms on the strip were going for $20-30 dollars that day. One of my friends got a room at the Cal Neva so he didn’t have to drive for $14.50.  Might have been cancellations due to snow, but hey, Reno is not Las Vegas, it is cheap to stay here about anytime. Check out the Santa Pub Crawl at this link.

And did I mention it is all for charity!