I had to be in California for Saturday night to keep the price of the airline ticket down, so managed to fit in a couple of day of skiing. Friday night was The Open Group Christmas Dinner for the Menlo Park staff, in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, so I stayed overnight in a hotel in downtown San Francisco.
Getting up at 4:00 am on Saturday allowed me a clear drive through to the Tahoe area. Even with a stop for breakfast, I was at Northstar-at-Tahoe by 7:45 am. Northstar has introduced a new computerised ski rental system. They were having teething troubles and it took close on half an hour to get skis.
| Once on the slopes, little had changed. (There is a new
lift opening up more challenging terrain, but there was not enough snow
for that area to open).
So, it was the Big Springs gondola, and the two express quad lifts to get to the summit of Mt. Pluto. Once there, my cell phone rang, nothing wrong with the signal. (It was Chris ringing from a swimming pool in Tadley). The first couple of runs were cruises down groomed slopes Ax Handle and Stump Alley off West Ridge. As usual on the first day of a new season, the turns did not seem quite as natural and they were seven months earlier. |
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About 9:15, the backside started to open. There were still
grooming machines attached to winches on Burn Out, so only
two runs were open.
Iron Horse has obviously been groomed on Friday evening. It was flat, but the grooves left by the grooming machine were still hard frozen. Near the bottom, snow making was still in progress, leaving patches of wet slop snow on an otherwise fast slope and mini-blizzards to ski through. The second run took in Promised Land and the lower section of Iron Horse. By this time the surface was beginning to soften, and it was time for a refreshment break to avoid dehydration. After coffee, I found that the rest of the backside was open. First call was Sierra Grande, pretty well groomed, followed by Polaris, which was definitely not groomed. The snow was soft, but with no real moguls formed. The top was challenging but by the bottom I was putting the turns together reasonably comfortably. |
| Burn Out had been groomed, but not
perfectly. The grooming machines had broken up a frozen furface. Near
the top, the surface was pretty icy with little loose snow. Lower down,
the surface was broken up pieces of the frozen surface. All the way down
there were interesting ridges and areas where the tops of bushes, and in
a couple of places rocks, showed through. It was certainly possible to
ski, but not without picking a careful line and concentrating on correct
weighting.
The Rapids was ungroomed and beginning to form moguls. I intended to take a second cruise down Sierra Grande to allow my legs to recover, but took a wrong turn and did Burn Out again instead. Time for a rest and lunch. |
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After lunch I headed for the backside once more. The only
run I had not done already was Rail Splitter. This
was not groomed. It was a comfortable ski, but my legs were getting
tired and I knew ir was getting close to time to pack-in for the day.
A couple of runs down Powder Bowl and Toninis from the East Ridge were enough and I headed back to the bottom. |
| By the time I finished it was about 1pm. I has skied for a little over 3 hours but in that time, because of the total absence of queues, done more than 20000 vertical feet .. a good amount of skiing for the first day of the season. |
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| Lift | Vertical | Easy Runs | Intermediate Runs | Advanced Runs |
| Big Springs | 480 | |||
| Arrow | 535 | |||
| Comstock | 1250 | Cascades, Ax Handle, West Ridge | ||
| Comstock | 1250 | West Ridge, Cascades | Stump Alley | |
| Comstock | 1250 | West Ridge | Iron Horse | |
| Backside | 1860 | West Ridge | Iron Horse, Promised Land | |
| Backside | 1860 | |||
| Coffee Break | ||||
| Sierra Grande, Down Under | ||||
| Backside | 1860 | Lower Burn Out, Back Door, Polaris | ||
| Backside | 1860 | Down Under, Burn Out | ||
| Backside | 1860 | Lower Burn Out, Back Door, The Rapids | ||
| Backside | 1860 | Lower Burn Out, Burn Out | ||
| Backside | 1860 | |||
| Lunch | ||||
| Rail Splitter, Lower Burn Out | ||||
| Backside | 1860 | Powder Bowl | East Ridge | |
| Rendezvous | 646 | Village Run, Main Street, Lumberjack | Upper Main Street | Toninis |
| Total vertical | 20291 |
Last updated: 19/12/2000
