Day 2 of my yearly trip to Whistler. The snow stinks, and you can't really do anything outside of groomed runs, but storms are on their way. The base is decent, but really way too low for this time of the year. In places you see the base of trees, and the snow covering the rest of the mountain looks threadbare and thin. Snowmaking equipment is on all day and night.

The big news, this year, is of course the Peak2Peak gondola that gets you from Whistler to Blackcomb (or the other way around) in 11 minutes. I skipped it on day 1, but I felt like going to the "other side" yesterday, so I jumped the mountain.

Two things stand out:

1. 11 minutes is really, really fast if you consider the alternative (going down the mountain and riding back up). Besides, you skip all the low terrain, which means most of the beginner land and the high annoyance areas
2. The Whistler web site makes it look like a huge thrill ride, with the gondola suspended high above the valley floor. It isn't, the gondola is still quite high up, but the arc of the gondola line follows the valley much more closely than you'd think.

No car and snowboarder? What do you do? Take your bike up to Tahoe (hopefully it's motorized) with your gear and your snowboard strapped on your back? Comes in handy when going downhill, you can use the board as your wings and fly above the crowd waiting in that giant parking lot that is I-80 on a Sunday evening.

So far, I had three options: rent a car, go with friends that are willing to drive, or hitch a ride with unknown strangers on craigslist or one of the carshare sites. Each of the three came with advantages and disadvantages:

• renting a car definitely wins points for being the most independent way to get to Tahoe. You can even rent the car and then look for friends or strangers to go with you, share the cost, and maybe even drive some of the time. The drawback is mostly that it's expensive (since you don't have a car, you have to get insurance) and that most rental car agencies don't have snowboarder-friendly policies. For instance, most agencies in town close on the weekend, so that you'd have to rent your car on Friday to return it on Monday even if you just need it on Sunday
• going with friends the funnest way of going anywhere on earth, is dependent on everybody's schedule. If you have friends like mine, who are constantly on the move, it's hard to do anything short notice. They'll have planned the weekend already by the time you call and say there is going to be snow in the mountains (yes, I know, another sign you are growing old is when your friends pre-plan their weekends)
• random car shares is theoretically a wonderful idea: you pay a moderate amount of money (typically gas/part of the gas), you can arrange for a pickup, you can choose the type of people you are going to meet and, best of all, you actually get to meet people that might become friends! The downside? Would you really want to make your snowboarding day depend on some random stranger? Imagine they don't show up at all, show up late, show up drunk and stoned, show up drinking and smoking pot, and are not willing to share?

Of all the resorts in the Tahoe area, Kirkwood has been consistently cited by friends as the one with the best snow. It is indeed in an odd location, about 40 minutes South of South Lake Tahoe, all by itself. The slopes face the East, which means they are shielded from the fierce West winds that bring all the powder with the winter storms.

I had not gone in the four years I had been snowboarding: I had always relied on season passes, and it seemed foolish to pay extra tickets and then go to a place so far off. Indeed, those that love Kirkwood all say that it doesn't have anything going on outside the slopes, unlike SLT, where you don't get bored no matter what time of the year.

It's Saturday evening, and the party people in the house are not budging. There are lots of places to go, lots of booze to drink, and yet nothing moves. Why is that? Well, tomorrow is a powder day!

We decide to leave early in the morning. Whistler has this wonderful program called Fresh Tracks that gets you up the mountain at 7:30a (one hour before the general population is allowed to join). For the price of $16 (in addition to the ticket), you get breakfast and early access to the slopes.