Awesome skiing at Kirkwood

Saturday was what the locals call "a bluebird day" which means blue sky and nice conditions. The snow base was very deep and lots of pretty fresh snow on the top led to some excellent skiing conditions. I was surprised at home much easier it was to ski in such crunchy, squeeky snow. Fantastic!

I had a great time, particularly in some of the runs I was familiar with from chair 11. Having skied past the gully up there a few times I decided to head down that too. It's pretty tricky to ski the gully up there but great fun. There are all kinds of obstacles down there from trees to chair lift poles to hard ice. As you swoop down into the gully the natural thing to do is to scrub some speed off by swooping up the other side. Sadly this often ends in tears as there soon comes a point when you have reached a great height on one side and the only way on is down! To add to the entertainment there is thick crusty ice at these great heights too, so you just slip off it! I think I've fallen over every time I've tried this so far but I still love it. The swooping gully really challenges your balance and the turns you need to make often seem to be in the wrong direction but when you get it right it's sweet!

As we set out today we were warned that snow chains would be required so I was pleased I'd had a practice fitting in the garage yesterday. However, although the road was not great, we didnt have to put the chains on in the end.

Weather was a bit less fun today with winds keeping many of the lifts closed and big crowds waiting for the lifts on the few that were open. Scott and I mainly skied from lift 11, which was excellent. We explored a couple of the other black runs to the right, which were in the wind a bit and quite steep, but lots of fun.