My 1980's Tahoe trips were usually 4 days over MLK weekend, but during the slow starting 1980-81 and 1986-87 seasons I deferred the Tahoe trips to March. During those seasons I also tended to ski more at Kirkwood than at Heavenly as Heavenly's lower snowfall meant more marginal coverage.

The 1987 trip started at Alpine Meadows on March 12, and after skiing we ate dinner at an Incline Village restaurant then owned by Steve Stone, whose 1980 Cy Young Award was on display. During dinner we saw a storm roll across Lake Tahoe toward us, and we had a snowy drive to our South Shore lodging.

On Friday March 13 we arrived at Kirkwood to 8-12 inches of new snow. Weather was still cloudy with occasional wind. The snow was dense but easy to ski unless wind affected. My notes never mention the Wagon Wheel lift, which I first skied in 1985. I suspect it was closed, but the powder would have been better near the more sheltered Cornice chair, where I spent most of the day.

My notes do mention a few laps in the trees of Hole-in-the-Wall, mellow terrain but excellent snow. Steeper powder skiing was available near the Cornice lift and near and beyond Sentinel Bowl.

This was a milestone day for powder skiing. I had skied about 250 days over a decade by then and never skied more than 10K vertical of powder in a day. The combination of old skinny skis and heavy coastal powder made most of my new snow days exhausting. This was the first one where I skied efficiently enough to make fresh tracks all day long. So I was stoked to finsh with 23,500 vertical and 17,000 of powder.

I only skied as much powder in one day once more before I bought Volant Chubbs in 1996 and began snowcat skiing in Canada in 1997.