They tend our bar, groom our mountains, and deliver our sustenance — they play an integral role in the functionality of our mountain community, but who are the faces behind these overnight shifts? Here, we profile three of the dozens of Truckee/Tahoe folk who work the graveyard shift. We ask how they got into it, their tricks for going to sleep, and what makes it all worth it. We learned that blankets to block the sunlight from shining into their bedroom become integral, and everyone agreed on a favorite perk: the sunrises and sunsets. “You take the same picture everyday, but you can’t help it,” Northstar California groomer Travis Callaghan said of these natural wonders.
The Groomer
Name: Travis Callaghan
Job: Grooming Manager at Northstar California
Hours: 12 to 10 a.m.
Age: 34
The most popular music played by the groomers at Northstar California is local radio station KTKE, according to grooming manager Travis Callaghan. This means, while we’re all safe and sound in our beds (or couches or truck beds or vans or tents) the cats at Northstar are listening to late night and early morning DJs at 101.5.
“The [internal] radio chatter is also pretty entertaining,” Callaghan said about how he and his fellow groomers stay awake and focused during the night. “I have one guy who gets the biggest data plan because he has Pandora going all night.”
Callaghan, who grew up in Truckee, has been working on the snow at Northstar for 15 years. His current position requires him and his staff to operate 13-ton pieces of machinery, on the side of a mountain, in all sorts of extreme weather, in the dark. Callaghan also has a large say in determining what terrain is groomed overnight. At Northstar, 16 people work the course of two shifts throughout the night, the first from 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., and the second from 12:30 to 9 a.m.
You never know what to expect when you’re grooming. “Sometimes the adrenaline gets pumping and you tighten your seatbelt up before going down a particularly steep trail,” he said, of hooking up winch packages and steel anchors on especially steep terrain.
An evening in a snowcat is a bit different than one might expect. “Inside the cat can be uncomfortably hot,” Callaghan said. They have to blast the heat because the snow accumulates on the windows if you don’t. So, most of the time, he’s in there in a t-shirt.
Managing your personal life can be one of the most difficult parts of employing night hours. When he first started working theses graveyard shifts, Callaghan would stay awake until 2 p.m. and then sleep until his shift. “Then I got a girlfriend,” he said, and his sleep schedule changed to adjust to spending time with his loved one. He now goes to sleep immediately after his shift, only to wake up at 3 p.m. to spend some time with his girlfriend, and goes back to bed around 8 p.m. to get a few more hours of shut-eye before his shift. Apparently, his new system worked, as the two were engaged in September on the top of Machu Picchu.
The Bartender
Name: Rob Charlesworth
Job: Graveyard Bartender at the Crystal Bay Casino
Hours: 1 to 9 a.m.
Age: 33
Rob Charlesworth is a single dad who sleeps in naps. He has been working at the Crystal Bay Casino for 12 years, the first five of which he spent in the cashier cage. He has since moved to graveyard bartending shifts as the timing affords him the ability to spend as much time as possible with his kids, ages 7 and 8. Living in Incline Village, he is able to take his mandatory break in the morning to relieve his babysitter and take the kiddos to school.
As you can imagine, the CBC in the late night and the early morning hours can be a pretty unique place.
“There aren’t as many fights as there used to be,” Charlesworth said, “but it can be a shit show.” The pivotal moment that decides how a night will go is decided right as a show gets out and folks choose to either funnel out or stick around for the long haul. He typically gets one to two hours of solid business on the weekend. On a typical shift, Charlesworth is the only bartender working and says he is lucky to have five customers on a given night.
“The customer number is hit or miss,” he said. “During the slow season you can get nobody and you don’t make anything … the weekends are what I rely on.”
Being aware of over-serving customers is something Charlesworth really has to worry about because he usually enters the shift with customers already having had a few drinks. But he likes the graveyard shift because it introduces him to some interesting characters.
“I learn a lot about people playing psychologist,” he said, mentioning that the two years of psychology he took in college have really paid off.
Eating is another factor of working the graveyard shift Charlesworth is figuring out how to manage.
“I first started eating during my shift and had acid reflux,” he said. “The gravity of the moon messes with my digestion.” As a result, he eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner at “normal hours.”
For Charlesworth and his family, working the graveyard shift is worth it. It affords him the ability to spend time with his kids in summer, drive them to school, and be with them when they get home. His kids are also supportive: “Sometimes they say, ‘dad, you look tired,’ and we all take a nap together.”
The Delivery Driver
Name: Scott Nikkel
Job: Director of Distribution at Truckee Sourdough
Hours: 10 p.m. to 10 a.m.
Age: 34
Scott Nikkel hit his one millionth mile of driving for Truckee Sourdough this past summer, and almost every one of these miles was driven on empty roads, in the middle of the night. “Driving through the night in a snowstorm, before the roads have been plowed, is one of my favorite things,” Nikkel said. “It’s a different kind of beautiful.”
But how did Nikkel, who grew up in Truckee, end up employing such atypical hours? He explained that it was really the only way he could pay for school and rent, while still finding time to ski. “I get the fun things 9 to 5 people can’t have, without sacrificing pay,” he said.
As you might imagine, driving around Truckee/Tahoe at odd hours invites some pretty interesting encounters. Nikkel had tales of staring contests with mountain lions, and coming back to the truck to see that a bear couldn’t resist that fresh-baked-bread-smell, and had opened the door. Also, because they are on the roads at such odd hours, the Truckee Sourdough delivery crew is often the first on the scene at accidents. They have reported fires, and even walked in on businesses being burglarized. Two to 3 a.m. is what they call “the witching hour” in describing the time of night when people are leaving the bar. “We see things that will blow your mind,” Nikkel said.
Adjusting to this sleeping schedule has to be hard.
“You’re a zombie for the first two to three weeks,” Nikkel said. He has been doing this for a while, so he’s got it down, and even sleeps “normal” hours on his days off.
“It’s hard to hang out with people who don’t understand the struggle of the night thing,” Nikkel said, adding that a lot of his friends work jobs that employ similar hours.
Nikkel doesn’t see himself working night shifts for the rest of his life, but for now, he is happy with it.
“I am getting paid to drive around the lake and see cool things,” he said. “Getting to see both the sunrise and the sunset is pretty trippy… and you learn to love coffee and cigarettes.”
