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January 14, 2005
Powder Hunt
Whoa -- big storm. Let's do it! Uncle Josh came with us on this trip. Hrm, snow on the drive up. Watch that Explorer swerve out and barely recover right in front of our eyes. Yikes!
Tuesday at Sugar Bowl -- freshies all day. ($13 Super Lift Ticket from the Bay Area Ski and Snowboard Show). Minor faceshot in Graydon Glades. Woot! (Note, Josh got snow on his face the hard way, by falling in it. :-)
Biltmore -- Room 408 is a suite, and it's super posh. Robes! Hey, Noah helped pick 3 of 5 on the free scratcher (part of the Casino Fun Pack from the Sunny Day Guide) and Glady won $25! Woo! Just about covers the cost of eating at the Cafe Biltmore, what with all the discounts. (That Casino Fun Pack includes coupons for 2-for-1 entrees, $6.95 Prime Rib dinner, etc. And breakfasts are only $1.99 to begin with, free with every room reservation.)
Wednesday at Northstar -- season passes and a free Sun-Fri from KWT. Working on SOTC does have its perks.
But ugh, apparently all the college kids are still on break, and all of the working stiffs have vacation time to burn, because at 10AM the parking lot was super crowded. Had to park in "K". Well, hard to resist a bluebird day after two consecutive storms.
Boarding the gondola took a while (new Village Express quad wasn't running), but the lodge wasn't too crowded, nor was the line for Arrow. Comstock, however remains a bottleneck for Northstar, and I kinda wish that instead of spending all that Double Whammy cash on new condo construction (which will only serve to further crowd the place), they would figure out a way to keep the wait at Comstock from being 5-10 minutes long. What about going to a 6-chair?
When complaining about Northstar to a friend, I realized what the problem is. Everyone, from beginners to experts *have* to take Arrow to Comstock. West Ridge is so easy, it's really green. So everybody clogs up those two lifts. But enh, even Vista gets clogged. On a Sunday!
Well, at least the staff at Northstar is still super cool and friendly. And oh, the snow? Well, freaked myself out and did a tree run off of the flats on Lookout Rd. Fresh snow, but um, watch those branches. Ended up at Backside where grr, more long lines. Back up and then down Corridor, just to show the skiers on the lift that not all boarders hate bumps, and to show the boarders that they're lame if they think bumps suck.
Posted by darryl at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)