Another storm, a bit warm, but just cold enough to give usable snow instead of half rain, so I drove up to go enjoy it for a few days:
roads were already nice and white on the way up
Carson Spur was quite loaded
Impressive wall of snow
thankful to have underground parking for the duration of my trip
another impressive wall of snow
glad to be back on the lift
I arrived by noon on sunday, new snow was starting to cover the frozen crust underneath:
lots of snow, the top of cornice had some almost invisible real cornices like that, I fell down from that one
met Johannes for a few runs
school run was a rounding error
it was still a bit too warm and wet
by the end of the day, things looked good though :)
When I got to my condo, I was reminded that it had snowed a bit recenty:
Monday: Kirkwood
While sunday was wet and cold, Monday was a nice bluebird:
Kirkwood has a real problem with electric charging, this is the only charger left on the entire property
nice powder
notice the huge pile of storage snow by the parking lots
got one of the first few chairs up the wall. Wee!
interestingly, the top of the chutes by the wall were bare due to wind blowing the snow away
this is the one time I had to unbind that day :)
Palisades was good too
Another picture of the storage snow pile in the parking lot
Cornice run, a bit rough at the top, but opened up to be good lower down:
Straight down run from the wall, a bit firm at the top too, but good after that:
Wall tree run:
The backside just opened, so I went to check it out:
pretty big cornice by the wave
it was a bit of a jump into snow that wasn't exactly a pillow underneath :)
I got down, but it was a bit scary :)
snow as wind packed at the top, deeper lower down
Tuesday: Kirkwood
Tuesday got more snow, which was free refills all day
the wall had so much snow that they gated you to come down before the chairs, the regular ramp that went under, didn't fit anymore
weather and visibility improved during the day, so much snow
I literally managed to snowboard all the way back to the building parking lot across the street :)
Great pow ride off the wall:
More pow during the day, free refills:
Even face shots (1:16):
Wednesday: Heavenyly Side Country
The last day, I could have stayed at kirkwood for a 4th powder day with another foot of freshies, but I went to Heavenly to meet my friend Ovidiu and Rik joined us later for some frond side country runs. It was a bit last minute, so driving there in less than 1H in the snow, was "challenging", but I made it :)
Gondola line
got to the gate for the first run
We went back for 6 firebreak runs total:
After 6 runs, we had enough time to go back the Gondola one more time, up sky, and towards the backside:
The backside snow wasn't perfect, but it was still a good run down, especialy at the top:
Eventually got down the good parts and took a rest :)
before doing the rest of the run down, where snow became more scarce (it's melting quickly at lower altitude):
eventually we got to below the snow line and had to walk a bit
then there was a bit of snow left to finish up
and we got to the road
way too much to drive back
thankfully we got luck with hitch hiking
25mn later, back at the gondola base, end of a great day
Thanks much to Ovidiu and Rik for joining me and the 7 powder runs
