Sking at Kirkwood

A new guy in town, Etienne, kindly responded to my car pool message and gave me a lift to Kirkwood. Nice to go up there with a few friendly faces. They we'ren't messing around either and made a bee line to the Cornice (chair 6). When we disembarked they headed left. It didn't take more than a millisecond and a glance at the black 'expert's only' sign to persuade me to part ways! Even the easier way down from 6 is pretty tough. I selected an ungroomed, steep mogul field for my first proper try out of the new skis. I survived and got right back on chair 6 at the bottom but my skiing was all over the place.

I had aquired some 'demo skis' for the weekend called Head Monster M70s. Whilst I could see they were excellent skis and they really bit in to the snow on some curves, I think they were a bit beyond my level of competence and I wasn't all that happy with them. The ski shop said that the M70 is narrow at the boot (70mm!) which makes it turn fast on groomed slopes but potentially not great on ungroomed stuff. They recommend that next time I try an M77, more of an "all mountain" ski.

Snow and conditions were a little funny. There was fresh snow down and deep powder in places, sometimes kinda frosted on top. Like trying to ski in porridge at times. It was pretty overcast all day, leading me to unforeseen bumps and an occasional spill which I didn't see coming on a silly gully coming off chair 5. As I landed on my back I immediately felt pain in my ribs - quite odd. I fall over a lot and it rarely hurts. Well, nothing seems broken.

Saw a couple of cars with flat tyres. Apparently the snow chains sometimes cause that. I'd better be prepared to change a wheel the next time I go.