| Kirkwood, 2/28 |
We went to Kirkwood on Tuesday, 2/28 and we had a great time. Their snow report said 10-14" of fresh, but there were very high winds so the actual new snow depth ranged from 0" to I'd say 10" or so. The winds were so high that they couldn't open many lifts, and for a while it seemed like they might close Cornice II, the lift we'd been riding and the only lift to the ridge-top. On one ride up they stopped the chair every few feet and it took almost 20 min to get up. They kept large parts of the ski area closed all day, and bombed well into the afternoon. (They did discount the lift ticket, though, which was nice.)
Even with limited terrain Kirkwood is still a great area, and we had a ball. We found fresh tracks every run, and the place was pretty empty with no lift lines. The wind on the ridge-top was amazing. We hiked out along the ridge once to reach a further bowl that held promise, and we were almost blown over a couple of times. They were reporting gusts to 50mph.
We rode hard all afternoon, and by the end of the day we were beat. Resting just out of sight of the bottom of the lift Helen wondered if we could get one more run in. We raced down to the lift to find the rope lines all down and the liftie in the shack digging out the "lift closed" sign. We slid up and sat down anyway at 4:03pm by their clock, and he didn't say anything. All the lifts were stopped by the time we got down again :)
The drive to and from Kirkwood was interesting. We drove down the west side of the lake. There was a lot of snow on the road, "chain control" signs suggesting the speed limit should be 25mph, and lots of people actually taking the "suggestion". The road is pretty hairy towards the south end of the lake, so taking it easy there was clearly appropriate. For the rest of the road, well... let's just say I used my own judgment and leave it at that :)
On the way back we found a cop giving a lecture to a guy he'd stopped, pretty much blocking the road. When he was done, the guy went and obeyed the 25mph limit religiously. We followed him. The cop appeared to turn around and go the other way, but as it turned out he quickly doubled back to check on us. The guy eventually gave up and pulled over on a sharp switch back. I didn't know what he was doing, so I stopped too. The cop went by, then I pulled out and followed him. The cop sped up past 25mph, but I held back. He got pretty far ahead of us, then dropped back to 25mph to see if I'd catch him. We could see him ahead of us through the trees as the road wound it's way high above the lake. Eventually he gave up and turned around, though. He looked surly as he passed us :)
Helen walking along the ridge in winds gusting to 50mph. She's using her board to help shield her face from the wind. We really did almost get knocked down a couple of times!
Helen down in some random gully far skier's left of the Cornice II chair.
Helen enjoying the wind-swept powder covering some random run skier's left of Cornice II.
Ditto.
Helen had a blast in that gully right under the lower part of Cornice II. I think we made sure to hit it on our last 4 runs at least :) She rode higher on the walls every time.
Ditto.
Helen holding up the car at the end of a long day of riding at Kirkwood.