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