Lake Tahoe: Day 5

   Today we were on a mission: we got up early, got ready and ate a quick, big breakfast, then dashed out the door to get on the road to Northstar. The lifts opened at 8:30 and we aimed to be on the first gondola up to the skies!
   From 8:30-11:30 I continued riding the Vista Express lift up to the the Skidtrail & Lumberjack trails. Once I felt confident on those, I switched from Lumberjack onto Cascade & Main Street, which were steeper blue runs. I got in a lot of practice linking turns while speeding downhill, which is still a little
scary for me.
   Feeling good and confident, I took a quick break to hit the lodge for a bowl of soup, then set back out on those blue runs. I was doing well enough that I thought I at least needed to take the Tahoe Zephyr Express lift once, to see the new Zephyr lodge that will open next week. I knew all the trails up there were blues, but I had no idea what they'd be like. Only one
way to find out, right?
   I hopped on the Upper, then Lower Pioneer trails, which turned out to be quite steep, narrow blues. I took my time and did okay on them; if the sun were higher and they had better light, it would have been easier to see where I was going. That flat light is trouble! So I only ended up doing them once, but was really glad to have tackled them. It gave me some new confidence to take with me to Heavenly tomorrow...
   All in all, I rode about 6.5 hours, and had very few falls. You'd think I'd be tired after such a long day, but I was so happy and fired up!!! I was SO excited about the progress I'd made. And my fire was stoked by our dinner at Mikuni Sushi, in Northstar Village. I had a couple of rolls, Heath (panko breaded shrimp, spicy tuna, salmon, avocado, masago & scallion, with unagi sauce) and Spicy Johnny (panko breaded shrimp, spicy tuna, unagi, avocado, masago and scallion). Both were very similar and equally delicious. (Can you hear me drooling?)
   Then we drove back "home" to South Lake Tahoe, for another glass of wine and some fancy chocolates (Lindt dark chocolate with chili peppers, and with fleur de sel.) If that isn't the way to end the day, I don't know what is!