tseeb
Well-known member
Kirkwood, CA 4/11/2021
We spent night in camper in Plymouth, CA, less than 60 miles, but about 90 minutes to Kirkwood. The guy pouring wine for our tasting that began not much after 3 (and ended about 5) had opened a large bottle of wine earlier in the day for a bottling party that he shared with us. I thought he said it was a 2005 Noceto Zinfandel, which is made from grapevines planted in the 1860s, and was equivalent to 18 bottles. Not sure if bottle size was a Balthazar (12L), Nebuchasnezzar (15L) or Melchior (18L), but it was a BIG bottle and very good, fruity and smooth and much less tannic than some of the other wines we tasted.View attachment 6It was 10 AM when we loaded chair 7 and took a warmup run
before moving to Backside. Snow was already a little past prime as surface on E-facing main groomer was chopped up although the snowpack still was firm underneath There was a line on chair 4, but I saw left side only had one merge and moved much quicker than other three that had two or three. Next time up I took short hike to groomer out past the Wave, but I was too early as it was still firmer than expected. We were overdressed for the temps and underdressed for closing day festivities. Princess Leia and a couple of guys in shorts.
I’d planned to returned to frontside using Thunder Saddle, but it was probably too early for that and my wife needed to use bathroom (they did not open bathroom on Backside this season) so we exited Backside using chair 3. We skied Whiskey run that was in great condition to 7800 where we shared a $3 Coors at bar, my wife's first indoor beer in over a year.
To avoid long hike to Reut, we rode much closer, but flatter chair 1 where steeper beginner run lookers right at top of chair still had groomer marks and was very good as was Wagon Trail on Reut chair. We then rode Cornice and skied Sentinel and went to camper before 1 to have some snacks and beers and let the dog out. My wife was done for the day with 10 runs and 8K. At least her day only cost me $60 (vs. $81 Buddy ticket and $94 advance purchase) as high school classmate of my brother who is an instructor at Kirkwood shared some of his employee 1/2 price coupons. I skied until 3:30 with two laps on the Wall on either side of another trip to the Backside to ski the Thunder Saddle return after getting part of Cold Shoulder and the gully next to it. I skied (and side-slipped a little) of very narrow One Man Chute.
My watch counted 18 lifts/17.2K. Would say more, but going to Heavenly for a couple of hours this AM and they load lifts for passholders at 8:30 on Mondays. Corrected duplicate and wrong location pictures later.
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We spent night in camper in Plymouth, CA, less than 60 miles, but about 90 minutes to Kirkwood. The guy pouring wine for our tasting that began not much after 3 (and ended about 5) had opened a large bottle of wine earlier in the day for a bottling party that he shared with us. I thought he said it was a 2005 Noceto Zinfandel, which is made from grapevines planted in the 1860s, and was equivalent to 18 bottles. Not sure if bottle size was a Balthazar (12L), Nebuchasnezzar (15L) or Melchior (18L), but it was a BIG bottle and very good, fruity and smooth and much less tannic than some of the other wines we tasted.View attachment 6It was 10 AM when we loaded chair 7 and took a warmup run
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