50 Year Storm - Kirkwood

They said it was the biggest storm in the past 50 years. We couldn't let this one slip by. Sebastian and I headed out in buckets of rain to pick up John from the powerless, tree-fallen, and flooded roads of Sacramento. Together we journeyed East to South Lake Tahoe battling the wet and blowing snow conditions. We arrived at 8pm in good health and psyched for what Saturday morning might bring. We set off early and arrived Kirkwood with enough time to have our breakfast and get into line before the first chair of 11 began to spin.



It was a glorious day, even though the top of the mountain never opened. Sunday we again awoke early and set out, finding the gate on 88 closed at 7:30am. It remained closed due to avalanche clean up till 11am. That didn't bother us much, we built a ramp into the 5ft snow berm. JD the fearless leader of the 101.5FM Powder Patrol lent a tow-rope and his buddy Casey to drive. I have never done a tow-in jump before, but it was great. At 40mph I was able to get some good air and some worse photos. JD took a couple tows and his photos are in the album as well. The cops shut us down, but shortly the road opened and we got our faces full of flakes while charging from 12-4pm. Monday, we saw the entire mountain open up. It was amazing. During the weekend I skied four different lines in the fingers, and John has showed some good progression toward his first All Mountain FreeSkiing Competition.
Check out the pictures by following this link!