Did the annual Tahoe cabin trip with Charvi & co! Very different crowd than last year. Shin and I drove up with Alex and Shirley, after picking up our rental boards from Sports Basement. We hit some pretty severe traffic on the 50 in El Dorado. We arrived at our cabin in South Lake Tahoe sometime after midnight.

Tahoe

We hit the slopes at Kirkwood our first day. Shin and I started with a green off of Lift 1. We took a little time warming up, getting some of the feel back. Then we started practicing toe-side, which wasn’t that hard. After a while, we took a shuttle back to the other side (Timber Creek?). There we hoped on some blues that had more constant descent and really started to get our groove on. After a couple of runs, we ran into Huyson! Together, we went down a gulch. It was awesome. Going up and down the walls, making quick adjustments over bumps and in between trees. We finished the day gulching and practicing S-turns on the blue. Back home, we all gourged ourselves on nachos, fish soups, and snacks. We hot-tubbed, played King’s Cup, and passed out.

Sunday was spent at Heavenly, which differs greatly from Kirkwood. Heavenly is much more expansive, but as Huyson pointed out, Kirkwood has more little hidden niches and gulches to explore. Shin and I took one narrow green to warm up, then spent the rest of the day tearing up blues. We took Ridge Run a lot, then went to the Nevada side and went down Orion many times. I started to get pretty proficient at S-turns. As I got more comfortable, some tips stood out:

  1. Getting low is fun
  2. Initiate the movement with your torso/shoulders
  3. Look where you want to go
  4. Lean down the hill…
  5. So you can unweight your backfoot and gracefully transition into the turn

Boarding was tiring; Shin and I ate and nibbled all throughout the day. My legs were pretty fatigued by the middle of our day. We were both pretty good by the end of the trip. I was pleased with our progress. Very fun picking something new up.