Kirkwood Mountain Resort: Expecting The Unexpected
Our plan was to ski three days over Presidents Day Weekend at Kirkwood Mountain, a ski resort near South Lake Tahoe, California. But things didn’t go quite as planned…
A huge winter storm developed over the Sierra Nevada mountains with white out conditions and avalanches making roads impassable. We spent 12 hours in stand-still traffic, going 30 miles total before bailing out to regroup and reassess the next morning. Others spent the night in their cars. After seriously considering whether to cancel our ski trip for good and hit up the vineyards in Sonoma, we tried one more last-ditch attempt at the most ridiculous roundabout route through Nevada, but it was the surest way we knew of actually making it to our final destination!
Much later than originally intended, we made it to our cozy log cabin nestled in 20ft high snow drifts at the base of Kirkwood Mountain. The next two days were full of fresh powder bliss, piled 7ft high and untracked. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life! Where was all the ice this New Englander is used to!? So this is what skiing is supposed to feel like?! They say no friends on powder days, and I don’t blame em. I’m just grateful for the group of friends that stuck with me!
I truly enjoyed the fresh mountain air and beautiful conditions, hanging out with old friends by the fire and soaking in the hot tub, eating delicious home-cooked meals, and figuring out how to navigate past all that white powdery stuff on the ground! We made the best decisions we could with the info we had at the time, always staying so positive despite the outlook, and learned some invaluable lessons in keeping our plans flexible and expecting the unexpected.
Remember when I told you how all our plans for this Cali ski trip were basically upended? Well, 4 hrs before we were supposed to fly home after our incredible mountain weekend, we heard our flights home were canceled! So that caused a bit of stress at the last minute trying to figure out what to do with our bags… But it meant we could hang out in San Francisco for an extra day and see some friends and family we don’t normally get to see. When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade - or should it be, when life gives you snow, you make snowballs!
