Kirkwood lift No 6

The Bay area rained for 2 weeks in a row. I had plans for the first weekend, but could not ignore the siren song of powder any long. On this Saturday, I bought lift tickets to Kirkwood.

Readers of my blog would know, I had ski a lot in Kirkwood the past 2 years. I am very familiar with terrain there, so it was a good test of how much improvement I had made in the last 2 years.

I took NAC Ski bus for this trip. Due to weather conditions, the bus actually had to put on chains during the drive to Kirkwood! It was not until 10am before we were dropped off at the Timber Creek base camp.

I quickly gather my gear and headed for lift 7. From there, I crossed into the Mountain Village area and go up lift 11. The Kirkwood ski team had training runs on Short Spoke, so I skiied Wagon Trail and the lower portion of the Wall instead.

After a few runs, I was feeling pretty bored. I had done these 2 runs too often in the last 2 years! I was also feeling hungry, so decided to break for lunch early.

After lunch, I went back to lift 5 and ski on Lower Monte Wolfe and Race Course. Then it is up lift 6 for Zachary, a black diamond slope.

I did Zachary once last year. Snow condition was not great and I was not in control. While I did managed to ski down the slope, I felt very uncomfortable and did not return.

Zachary had a very steep start. I hesitated for almost 5mins at the beginning of the run, waiting for boarders to clear the area, plan the route I am going to take and gather some courage:)

I decided to make small turns. On the first few feet, my form was all wrong. I actually formed wedges with my ski! I side slide a little to below the first post of the ski lift, gather myself more and was able to parallel ski down the rest of the way. It was a thrill!

I decided to try the run again. I was not in complete control on the first few feet and side ski some again, but did parallel ski on more portions of the slope.

I this point, I started feeling tired and had a Gatorade break at the cafe below. When I went back to Zachary, I was properly skiing even more portions of that slope! Unfortunately, the boarding crowd had return from lunch and there were a lot of bumps in the snow. I fell 3 times while coming down. That was when I decided to invoke "Tao's rule".

Tao was a co-worker, a good friend, and a good skiier. He once told me whenever he falls on a slope, he would call it a day. The reason being he must be tired and any further skiing probably meant it was more easy to get injured.

Of course, Tao formulated the rule while he was living in New Hampshire, and the ski slope was 2 exits on the highway north of this house. I had to spend a lot more time and money getting to the slope and was not able to go home that early in the afternoon.

I went back to go back to Race Course and Lower Zachary and skiied on the blue slope for rest of the day.

Personally, I felt I had improved even from last season. I skiied down Zachary with much more control compare to last year. Technique wise, I felt I was not "attacking" the slope enough. I still had a tendency to lean back a little and my stance was still too wide. This caused some problem while coming down steep slopes because the inner leg got caught and caused me to fall. A lesson might be in order on my next ski trip.

I finished the day at 4pm, skiied back to the bus at Timber Lodge for the long but uneventful ride home.