Kirkwood, CA 4/8-9/00

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 4/11/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>It was nice visiting my home state again. Kirkwood was the usual submerged resort with insane 20 foot drifts all over the base lodge. The mountain was in amazing shape. Lows in the mid 20's at night and highs in the upper 40's during the day made for some of the most fantastic spring boarding I've seen to date. No rock hopping bare spots, no lift lines, not many people, and superb terrain. <BR> <BR>Icy trails in the morning on the front side of the mountain. Even at 9:00 AM, when the lifts opened, the back side (Sunrise chair) of the mountain was already getting soft. By 11:00 AM, the whole mountain turned into nice edgable spring slush. The slush never got -too- soft, I was carving down the slopes all day without losing my edge hold to slurpee snow. <BR> <BR>Some of Kirkwood's infamously hairier trails were closed off due poor coverage at the top, in particular on the backside. There was still some nice cornice-droppings here and there, and acres and acres of wide-open bowls leading down to untracked mogul runs as far as the eye could see. It was a challenge to get as many runs in as possible on as much varied terrain as possible. <BR> <BR>As usual, Kirkwood rocks.