Can’t Wait to Be Back in the Saddle Again

Bluebird conditions, fresh corduroy and first in the lift line. I knew it was going to be a primo day for skiing at Kirkwood last Sunday. Sure enough, we skied from the time the lifts started turning to the apres ski party in the parking lot with the Bay Area Ski Bus folks.

Kirkwood Mountain Resort

We immediately headed to some of my old faves: Buckboard (a blue) and Conestoga (a black), which was groomed to be smooth from top to bottom. Then we made a beeline for  the back side and the Sunrise chair. We skied the Wave and then rode up Covered Wagon, two surface lifts, to find the powder stashes on Fawn Ridge. Skiing the rolling landscape of Fawn Ridge, I took the opportunity to simply look around and admire the beautiful snow-capped mountains. It resembled cross-country skiing more than downhill.

On our return, I took the Lookout Vista lift for the first time. Added in 2008, Lookout Vista is a two-person T-bar surface lift that replaces the hike to areas such as the chutes of Thunder Saddle. The lift gets steep near the top. To avoid panicking, I stared at the tips of my skies. I wasn’t ready for Thunder Saddle just yet–my plan was to take baby steps up to skiing it as one of my last runs of the day.

We took Cornice Express to Sentinel Bowl (a black). I bobbed and weaved through some of my favorite gullies. Two o’clock rolled around, and we decided it was time to tackle the biggie–Thunder Saddle. We took the Sunrise chair up and traversed to the skier’s left. We arrived at one of the entrances into Thunder Saddle that looked manageable (the toughest run at Thunder Saddle is called Hell’s Delight). The top of the chute had collected a bunch of snow, and to my relief, it was wide enough to make my turns. The path narrowed to a rocky chute, where I sidestepped past the rock jutting toward me. Once through, the Saddle lost its rumble as the slope of the run dwindled to the bottom.

Liking the steep, but wanting something wider, I suggested heading to Zachary’s. The fast run off of Cornice Express was too crowded with skiers and boarders, so we headed to the left to Olympic (a black). It seemed so easy after Thunder Saddle.

We crisscrossed the mountain, but I left behind plenty of advanced terrain–it seems like there’s no end to the advanced stuff at Kirkwood–for a future, braver me to bite off one trip at a time.