Kirkwood in the snow

On this Sunday, I went skiing with A at Kirkwood. It was Sierra Alavanche Center's ski day and lift ticket s were only $35 each!

The forecast called for snow on Sunday morning, and chains were required. We considered taking the ski bus, but by the time we checked, tickets for the bus were all sold out! We had no choice but to go in my car.

The drive to Kirkwood was fairly uneventful. We left Bay area at 5am, and with only a short break to put on chains, reach Kirkwood at 9:30am. After a short walk from the parking lot to the ticket office, we hit the slope at 10am.

This was A's first boarding trip in 2 years, so we decided to warm up on green slope first. Since we were in the Mountain Village area, we hit Snowkirk, on lift number 1.

After 2 quick runs, A's confidence picked up a little, and we decided to move on to blue slopes.

I suggested we go up lift number 5 and ski down lower Monte Wolfe and Lower Zachary. A agreed. The snow condition was great and on the easier slope it was lots of fun.

After a few more run on the blue slopes, we broke for an early lunch. A was getting quite comfortable on the blue slopes, so I decided we would hit Wagon Trail on Lift 11 some some black diamond action. (Note: I recalled when I first ski Kirkwood 2 years ago, Wagon Trail was a blue trail. Wonder if I remembered wrong or did Kirkwood made the trail more difficult)

A really like Wagon trail! It was enough of a challenge, but not overly scary. We would spend the rest of the afternoon skiing that trial. Short spoke was opened at about 3pm, and I was able to get a few runs in on that slightly steeper slope.

On this day, I had some difficulty getting my boots into my ski bindings. This has never happened to me before. I had thought there was something wrong with the bindings or my boots, but when I had them checked by the pro-shop, everything seemed okay. I made a mental note to have the skis and binding checked before my next trip.

It snowed the whole day we were skiing and on our way back, the road was still under chain controlled. It was a slow drive.

Given it was almost 8pm when we reached Jackson, I suggested stopping for dinner at Jackson Ranch casino.

Of all my previous trips to Kirkwood, I had never stopped here! The casino was a good 1.5 miles away from highway 88. Inside, it was decent size! There were several restaurants and a food court. A and I each ordered a satisfying bowl of Pho. The hot soup was great after spending the day in the cold. I made another mental note to stop here for dinner on future ski trips, especially if we were delayed getting off the mountain.

After dinner, most of the ski traffic were gone! It made for a fast, uneventful drive back to the Bay area for us.