Kirkwood, CA 1/1/2010 - closed indefinitely

tseeb

Well-known member
I had a bad start and somewhat early end with good skiing in between. Since it was New Year’s Day and I have four days planned, I did not leave San Jose until 6:30 AM. I was making pretty good time until I passed one too many cars in the last passing lane before the long downhill to Silver Lake. A CHP officer already had two cars pulled over and waved me over. He gave me a ticket for 35 in 25 mph chain control area and said he could have written it for much higher. I don’t think I will fight this one so it looks like I better keep it down to 35-40 while in chain control for a while.

We arrived Kirkwood at 10 AM and parked in the lot at Chair 7 as all the parking on the road was taken. It was snowing heavily with some wind in the parking lot, but was not bad on Chair 7 where there was 1-3 inches of new, not very dry snow as the snow level was close to 7,000 feet. My son and I did a couple of runs on Cornice where I was able to ski yesterday’s 4-6 inches new plus today’s 2-3 inches fresh. We moved to Chair 10 which skied very well and found places where there was close to a foot of untracked.

We went back towards the car so I could pickup lunch. Chair 7 was stopped and I heard people saying they were told it could be 5 to 60 minutes. On the way to the lodge, I heard they were going to shutdown chairs 1 to 4 so they would have enough power to run the core chairs. Chair 7 started running while we ate lunch in very crowded lodge. It was dumping outside. We went up chair 7, then Cornice and saw the chair stop shortly after we got off and could hear sirens coming from the base. We decided to head towards Chair 7 where we were parked and noticed a lot of smoke coming from Kirkwood’s power plant. The skiing between Olympic and Sentinel was great, but all chairs were stopped except for running to unload those stuck on them, We loaded up and stopped for tacos at the Kirkwood Inn, but they were also without power so we continued to South Tahoe. We passed a few fire trucks going the other way and got out of chain control at the bottom of Carson Pass, I hope they can get some lifts going on 1/2; otherwise we may be paying for Homewood, Diamond Peak, Sierra or, if I can get a deal, Heavenly. 9 runs/10,650 vertical
 

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Looks like the conditions at Kirkwood are/were way better than we had at heavenly. Fixing the generattor is a a day late for me. We booked the kirkwood shuttle for the day but got a call early this morning saying they weren't opening. Only good luck was the fact that Mott canyon opened and we found some decent untracked for an hour.

We don't get a lot of reports from Heavenly here and I can see why, that plae really is pretty flat and no above treeline skiing. 2 days there this weekend will be my first and last.
 
socal":o2p82lru said:
We don't get a lot of reports from Heavenly here and I can see why, that plae really is pretty flat and no above treeline skiing. 2 days there this weekend will be my first and last.

I'm not gonna defend Heavenly since it's reputation as a crowded, traverse-ridden, snow deprived (compared to it's local brethren) mountain is justified. However, it does have some saving graces. The trees at upper elevation on the Nevada side are well spaced and a lot of fun in good conditions. Mott/Killebrew have some short but legit steep shots. One of my favorite ski experiences is the newly opened backcountry gates that allow you to ski down from essentially the top of the Nevada side down to casino-level. I think they're called Fire Break and Palisades (plus some other lines). I went with locals, which is helpful since you need a car pickup on the bottom (and it helps to have people who know where to ski since you could end up nearly anywhere in South Lake Tahoe). The lines aren't too steep, but in good snow (relatively rare, but it does happen) the burnt-out trees of Fire Break are a blast. The coolest part is that for essentially the whole run you feel like you're going to ski right into the cobalt waters of the lake. Basically, when we're at Heavenly all we do is lap the backcountry runs... There's also a nearly 5000' backcountry run that goes down to Carson Valley, which I didn't do but my friends raved about (that run is especially rare to get in good conditions). Note the Tahoe-facing backcountry runs actually get pretty heavy traffic, but it's all unpatrolled and true backcountry - I would only recommend going with locals who have knowledge of the avalanche conditions and only if you have avalanche training/equipment.
 
rsmith":2pbqa9c8 said:
socal":2pbqa9c8 said:
We don't get a lot of reports from Heavenly here and I can see why, that plae really is pretty flat and no above treeline skiing. 2 days there this weekend will be my first and last.

I'm not gonna defend Heavenly since it's reputation as a crowded, traverse-ridden, snow deprived (compared to it's local brethren) mountain is justified. However, it does have some saving graces. The trees at upper elevation on the Nevada side are well spaced and a lot of fun in good conditions. Mott/Killebrew have some short but legit steep shots. One of my favorite ski experiences is the newly opened backcountry gates that allow you to ski down from essentially the top of the Nevada side down to casino-level. I think they're called Fire Break and Palisades (plus some other lines). I went with locals, which is helpful since you need a car pickup on the bottom (and it helps to have people who know where to ski since you could end up nearly anywhere in South Lake Tahoe). The lines aren't too steep, but in good snow (relatively rare, but it does happen) the burnt-out trees of Fire Break are a blast. The coolest part is that for essentially the whole run you feel like you're going to ski right into the cobalt waters of the lake. Basically, when we're at Heavenly all we do is lap the backcountry runs... There's also a nearly 5000' backcountry run that goes down to Carson Valley, which I didn't do but my friends raved about (that run is especially rare to get in good conditions). Note the Tahoe-facing backcountry runs actually get pretty heavy traffic, but it's all unpatrolled and true backcountry - I would only recommend going with locals who have knowledge of the avalanche conditions and only if you have avalanche training/equipment.

Riding up the gondola I made the comment that the only steep terrain at the mountain (besides Mott area) was below the gondola and technically out of bounds. At that point I hadn't made it over to Gun barrel which is legitimately steep, but like you pointed out in your post this terrain is rarely in good shape given it's low elevation. Riding up the Gondola you can see that none of that terrain has adequate coverage, and even with their heavy snow making, the face of Gun Barrel is in pretty poor shape.

I would say, that for Heavenly is a great place for an intermediate skier to learn to ski in the trees. My girlfriend, an intermediate, loved the pitch of the trees, me on the otherhand, not so much. Unfortunately, the traverses are miserable for boarders. My girlfriend was lucky to have a tow (me) on the flat spots but you could see loads of other boarders sitting down all over resting from these long traverses.
 
I understand the sentiment of all of the above posts. Heavenly's layout/topography is very inefficient with the flats and traverses. That new gondola from the casinos is convenient if you're staying near there but is a potential horrendous logjam at the end of the day downloading. I won't go near the place on a holiday weekend as all of the logistics problems are magnified.

no above treeline skiing.
That's usually a downside for me too, but on storm days it's a virtue as at Northstar, which also has crowd and terrain issues under more normal conditions. Tahoe skiers, like those in SLC, can make the last minute call where to ski each day depending upon weather, conditions, potential crowds.

In general Heavenly has excellent tree spacing and the powder potential is obvious. It does get only 2/3 to 3/4 of the snowfall of areas at comparable elevation on the Sierra Crest, so the opportunites are rarer, especially the low elevation backcountry runs to which rsmith refers. But with Sierra snow volatility it does happen, and I have little doubt that knowledgable locals who can seize those opportunties are well rewarded.

FYI by trail count Heavenly reports 87% open but as recently as last week it was only 64%. Low snow years are another situation in which Heavenly should usually be avoided.
 
87% seems reasonable to me after spending the weekend there. They had Mott open on Sat, and most everything else was open before that. I would not that the tree areas (even at 10k ft) still need more snow, there are obvious and not so obvious rocks that need a few more feet to cover. No major dings on my skis but a lot of dodging rocks was necessary.
 
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