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February 05, 2005
Saturday at Sierra
I hate Saturdays. Parking lots are crowded, lift lines are long, it's hard to find a seat for lunch.
Well, today disproved that. Mainly because Doug and I were able to drag our butts up at 5:30AM to leave from Sunnyvale, and got to Sierra at approximately 8:40AM. We parked in lot D, 20 cars down. Heck, it didn't even matter that at the end of the day I forgot where we parked. Doug spotted the car as soon as we started walking down the aisle. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Doug didn't have skis, and hadn't skiied in over 13 years, so I took advantage of the American Express deal -- 50% off of the $78 First Timer package that includes rentals, a lesson, and a limited lift ticket. Also got the upgrade to a full lift ticket for 50% off of the usual $20 (which was a happy mistake on their part), so it was *cheap*!
They got Doug processed, fitted, and with a crazy-short pair of skis (156cm!) pretty quickly, and we took a couple of quick runs down Broadway to get warmed up.
The snow was groomed great, and they've even got some beginner parks running parallel to Broadway, so I took a few little jumps.
We then took the "shortcut" up Nob Hill, down Sugar N' Spice to load onto Grandview Express from the shorter backdoor line (as opposed to the line you'd take straight from the lodge which was ridiculously long). We took some a backside run, then up Short Stuff, down Upper Sleighride to Beaver into the West Bowl. After which, Doug really needed a rest. This was still before 11AM!
So, I decided to take a bump run through Clipper, which was really dug out. My legs were *killing* me, and finally at 11:30AM I found my way back to the main lodge and Doug and I had an early lunch. We *just* beat the long lines upstairs in the pub, and we got back out there probably around 12:30PM or so. We took Grandview up to the top, and of course after lunch and the bumpy lift ride I ended up needing to use the bathroom. Told Doug I'd meet him upstairs in the Grandview Lodge.
When I didn't see him in the restaurant/bar, I took the stairs up to the roof, which amazingly, I've never done before at Sierra. Duh! Grand View -- I get it now. You can actually see the lake from Sierra. Who knew?
Anyways, after taking some pictures we took Castle down, which was really smoothly groomed. Back up, and then over to the Backside, where we tried the weirdly laid out Smokey, which is supposedly a boardercross course, but mainly consists of badly marked rollers and banked turns. Hard to tell which is which, and that makes it a little dangerous.
Back up El Dorado to take Coyote, which had some super-fun medium-sized bumps, then up one more time to take the ungroomed stuff below the lift. I thought Doug was going to get lost, but he ended up right above the lift. But I was below, and we ended up having to go to Short Stuff again, which by this time was very crowded.
Doug decided to take a break again, so he headed back down to the lodge, while I headed back over to Grandview Express. Unfortunately, I tried Chute, which while super steep, fast and fun, didn't drop me where I wanted to go. Ended up skating over to Grandview, where I took a bump run down Preacher's Passion, and then one down Upper and Lower Dynamite. I was supposed to meet Doug at the top of Nob Hill, so I took Sugar N' Spice over, but then I was wrong in thinking that it met up with that lift. So having missed Doug, I took one last bump run down Lower Dynamite and called it a day. Never got over to Eastabout, which looked like it would've been a pretty good run. Nor did I make it back over to the West Bowl.
But still, got quite a lot of runs in, and at least when going single, the lines weren't too bad.
All in all, a pretty good day.
[Note: Glady twisted her ankle a few days prior to the trip, so she decided not to go. Also, Noah was still getting over the last vestiges of his cold. Sucks, cause it was a good day, and we haven't always had the best of luck at Sierra. :{ ]
Posted by darryl at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)