Lake Tahoe Ski Trip - Ski Kirkwood

Sunday April 7th, 2019 started very promisingly - the sky was sunny, the wind seemed to be not very strong, and we got a tweeter announcement from Heavenly that everything was scheduled to open except the north bowel lift. We arrived at the Gondola center a few minutes ahead of opening time, and got our ski rentals, and activated Justin's season pass for the day and bought my lift ticket. We were in the line 8:25 am. The gondola was running without passengers already. Right before the opening time 8:30 am, it was announced that the gondola was placed on wind hold! In fact all upper Nevada side lifts were placed on hold.

The wind was not strong at all ~ 10 mph. We were told by a fellow skier during a lift ride the previous day that Heavenly was overly cautious due to an accident happened a few years ago on a summer day operation. I believed that the wind hold was due to the on-duty operation manager's overly conservative mind set. So I decided right then that we would return the lift ticket and go somewhere else - Kirkwood, where all lifts were open on this day. It is about 50 minutes drive from south lake Tahoe.

Kirkwood is 20 miles inland from Lake Tahoe, and there is no lake Tahoe view from the mountains.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful the mountains were around Kirkwood area. The views are even better onsite at Mountain village. The lift ticket was nearly 30% off Heavenly's ! The sky was sunny with snow white clouds, the snow was thick. 

Justin skiied here before, so I just followed him without looking at trail map. The run was from the top of Cornice Express - only black trails were available there. They are all single black diamond trails. I know I could ski on them, the hard part was to get into the trail from the top. I skied down Lookout Janek on side way a little bit, and once I was on the slope, my fear went away and I managed to ski down the steep and bumpy slope. We stayed on this portion for a few more runs and then we moved to Sunrise lift at the backside of the mountain. 

The backside of the mountain provides a different vista, and the trails are less demanding. Once we made a few runs and my confidence level was back - Justin led me skiing into woods ! I essentially had to inch forward on the steep or not so steep slopes in the wood, and I sweated so much. So we decided to have lunch at Sunrise Grill right by the lift right after this run. We went back to Mountain village area for the rest of the day after lunch, I stayed on Solitude lift which serves mostly blue trails, Justin went on Cornice Express to ski on black diamond trails exclusively. We decided to meet around 3:45pm for one last run.

Kirkwood has beautiful mountains as Heavenly features lake Tahoe. The main issues I had with Kirkwood were - 1) there are too many flats on the blue and green trails, 2) the trails were not groomed. When I skied on black diamond trails I did not ski at a reasonable speed. My average speed at Kirkwood was 13.6 kmh, compared to 21.6 kmp at Heavenly the previous day. I need the speed and feel of control to enjoy skiing. 

Before the meeting time, I went to Cornice Express solo on my own around 3pm and get down without problem. I stopped skiing around 3:15pm and waiting for Justin near the lift entrance for one last run. While waiting I checked Heavenly lift status, it was the same as Saturday! We made a right decision to come to Kirkwood.

Justin came at 3:45pm and we went on Cornice Express one more time, we skied from the top of Cornice Express to Timber Creek base  - a 1.5 mile long trail. Timber Creek base is very close to where we parked our car, no need to wait for shuttle this time.

We were glad we came to Kirkwood. I was forced out of my comfort zone skiing on black diamond trails most of the time. Justin tried jump off cliff! He had a "exhilarating" time skiing at Kirkwood.

a mountain near Kirkwood

on the way to Kirwood

View from the right hand side of  top of Cornice Express, I skied down the steep slope where the two persons were

Justin had no problem to ski on these single back diamond trails. he skied with confidence and speed, and he enjoyed skiing on them. he told me it was exhilarating to ski on those trails

The trails on the left hand side of the Cornice Express are more difficult. We skied over the take-off area, I was scared of the slope already without looking from the edge and had to go back to the Lookout Janek. I knew those trails difficulty level were about the same as Lookout Janek, but I was tired and sweating a lot from skiing on the black diamond trails. 

Sunrise Grill is right by the Sunrise rock

Skis on the rack

One issue I had with Kirkwood was that the tails were not groomed. There were piles on the slop even in the morning, which made skiing more difficult.

      

On top of Cornice Express for one last run

Lake Tahoe Ski Trip - Ski Heavenly

Saturday (April 6th, 2019)  at lake Tahoe did not start well: the sky was cloudy, the wind was strong. Half of the mountains at Heavenly ski resort was on wind hold!  We could not take gondola to get to the Nevada's side of the mountain (the better, higher part!), had to take shuttle go to California side of ski resort at California lodge. 

Heavenly ski resort crosses Nevada/California State line (lower left half is California side), with Nevada side has more ski trails and higher mountain peak. The bright red lines with numbers were my runs on the mountain late that afternoon from 3:30pm to 4:30 pm right to the time the mountain was closed for skiing

The skiing surface condition at California lodge was good. There was plenty of snow! Upper mountain actually had 2 inch fresh snow from the previous night! 

The Heavenly ski resort's base at California lodge has relatively low altitude - 6565ft! The upper mountains are served by lifts at 8550 ft. As the lower mountain has either "green" trail or "black" or "double black" trails,  we took the lift gun barrel express  to climb to the mid mountain lift. We started on first run from the top of powder bowel express, and a couple more runs on the "blue" trails  - I felt great, and enjoyed the thrill of high speed, my max downward ~ 30 mph! Justin suggested that we try the expert level "black" trail "water fall" - which is a short steep trail. I had no problem skied down, but I did not gain the speed due to fear of falling.

Sky started to clear up near noon time, and the crowd started to form at the Canyon express lift. The beauty of the mountain and the lake started to show. I slowed down skiing, and started to take many photos of the mountain and the lake.

Justin on the slope with lake Tahoe in the background, under low clouds

a weather system was moving through

there were not too many people at the canyon express, despite the fact the sky express, the lift to the highest peak at ski resort, which is next to it, was lcosed

The clouds moved out fast and broke, the beauty of skiing on Heavenly was a reality now  - I could see the lake and its surrounding mountain on almost any trails at Heavenly.

Near noon time, the lines got a lot longer, and wait time for lifts was about 10-15 minutes, longer than a typical run downhill, which was typically 5 -10 minutes. The trails could be pretty long if we skied from top of of canyon express to the base at California lodge, 2700 feet vertical drop, 2.5 miles distance

We stopped at the top of lower gun barrel to have a few pictures before going to lunch. I skied down through run about, Justin skied down the double diamond gun barrel trail

For the last run of the day, we went to the top of canyon express, the highest point we could reach that day and skied all the way to the base via ridge run and mombo to reach the lift Groove - which serves the double diamond trails the face and gun barrel, Justin took these two trails to the base, I used the lift and then took the advanced round-about (skiing in the wood on a narrow chute!). I reached the base a few minutes ahead of Justin. The double diamond trails he took, were hard to ski on. This picture showed the lower gun barrel - the 2D photo did not reflect how steep the slop is!

View of gun barrel trail from the base

The hub on the top of the mountain is the top of of sky express lift, the highest point on the California side of the resort. It was closed due to wind (or was it due to low volume of the crowd?) 

Blue sky, white snow and green pin trees always form a beautiful tapestry 

There had been clouds over the lake all day long. I prayed for a clear day for next day - and forecast showed that it would be. We looked forward to skiing on Nevada side of the mountain at Heavenly. 

Lake Tahoe Skip Trip - on the road

Due to schedule conflicts and changed vacation preference of a family member, we did not went on on an annual skip vacation last year. However I was fixated in going to ski at lake Tahoe due to good snows there in the winter.  The original plan to go there in February was scraped due to severe winter storm.  I finally made the 4 day trip on April 5th. I took a 11 am flight from DFW to SFO, then took a commuter train to Berkeley to meet my son. We drove to South lake Tahoe, stayed at a Best Western hotel in town, which was a few hundred yards away from lake Tahoe's shoreline, and about half mile away from the gondola to get to Heavenly ski resort.

As the plane approaching bay area, I was pleasantly surprised  to see the green landscape. What a sharp contrast from just 5 months ago, when the whole state was in a 7 year long drought, the landscape was  in a sad brownish state everywhere I saw. Sustained wet weather has transformed the state since December. This was what the mother nature could do!

View of the bay and a bay bridge. It was cloudy when the plane approached SFO airport. In fact low clouds prevented my flight from taking off from DFW for 30 minutes. Typically Northern California is in dry season in April, and this year the rain just kept coming down 

I took the commuter train from SFO to Berkeley to meet my son for a drive to lake Tahoe that afternoon. When I got out of the train station, the cloud started to break up, sun shone through!

Our drive to south lake Tahoe was uneventful. The evidence of heavy snow in the winter was everywhere, especially the  snow wall by high way 50.

We arrived at our destination around 7 pm. We went to  "Hot pot" for a hearty dinner. We were ready to ski on the Heavenly ski resort's mountains, a little bit worried about the weather.  

Camping and Running at Lake Ray Roberts Park

The weekend of March 30-31, we went to Lake Ray Roberts by ourselves - just Lily and I since Nicholas was at State Science Fair in San Antonio. In addition to camping, our first in over a year, and first only two of us, we planned to run on Jordan park trail for 13.1 miles for Lily's practice run for her April half marathon race. 

We arrived at Lake Ray Robert in the early afternoon, set up our tent in a primitive camp - Hawthorn. No water, electricity at the site but our tent was at lake front. It was a quiet location

The cloud started to break up, sunshine dotted the woods. It was a cool beautiful afternoon at the park. Few people around 

We hiked on the paved Randy Bell Scenic loop, our favorite trail in this park and also explore the route to Jordan park trail from our camp site. 

The pound by the trail was replenished by bounty of spring rains 

We encounter deer a couple times while hiking

The spring green was soothing to the eyes

As sun set, the wind picked up its strength, and it was getting cold fast. We put winter clothes on and started a camp fire. The dinner was simple, grilled peppers and shrimps. It was delicious

We collected fallen tree branches for the fire. The fire brought us much needed warmth in the cold northern wind, and allowed us to stay in the open for longer time

We went into the tent when the fire woods were burnt. I found out in dismay that I took a full size air mattress with us instead of the usual queen size.  Fortunately we were prepared in other aspects for the cold night: we had blankets, winter coats to help us endure the cold night. It would have been more comfortable.

It was sunny beautiful day the next morning. We drove to the Jordan park trail head instead of running from our tent per previous afternoon's exploration of the trails and  the trail map. 

Jordan Trail hugs the shoreline of lake Ray Roberts for several miles. We saw grand egrets, grey herons

On the more inland portion of the trail, bird chirping followed us most of the time.  It was quiet, it was beautiful. We were the only people on this trail until we nearly finished our run. What we did not expect was that the trail condition was rough from time to time  since the trail is shared by runners, hikers, bikers and equestrians. The trail is not good for running. We cut our runs short because of this. We turned around at 5 mile distance. I finished 10 mile run, the longest distance I ran so far. 

I crossed the gate at Jordan park trail head on the return, I finished a 10 mile run on the loop.

We had our breakfast after the run, and it was time to pack up and go home.