tseeb
Well-known member
I often get here on New Year's Day, but instead did a five mile walk on the beach with my wife at Manresa Beach (south of Santa Cruz) where it was in the high 60s. There was a temperature inversion on the way up to the Sierras. Stockton and the valley was below freezing, but at 2000 feet in the Sierra foothills it was 42 and Kirkwood was in the high 30s/low 40s during the day with brisk wind from the West over the top. Kirkwood is reporting 41-48 inch base on 69-88 inch total snowfall.
Kirkwood was pretty good packed powder although rocky at the top of most runs. Snow was blowing in so at the end on the day there was two or three inches of chalk in the gullies on the Backside (Sunrise) and some other places. I could stay on chair 4 longer if the chair was fast, but quickly tire of 12 minute ride for 2 to 3 minute run and exit north towards Thunder Saddle. The entrance was very narrow and the best place I found required dropping off a three foot cornice. The first time I went down Bogie's Slide which had great snow. The second time I went further West and found Two Man Chute had a mandatory 5 feet horizontal air over rocks next to blue ice and even though I saw someone ahead of me do it, I did not try it as I was skiing alone in the PM. One Man Chute was worse so I continued to the easiest way down, single diamond Thunder Saddle which was excellent.
The Wall was open, but very lightly used and the entrance was as narrow as I've ever seen, but not icy. I did it twice and later found out that my son and his friend also did it twice on snowboards, even though my son only has about 10 days on a board. The main run on Cornice chair, Zachary looked too groomed, firm and crowded. Instead, I did Sentinel, which was also firm unless you went a little past main run, twice, Monte Wolf twice and ended my day on Olympic, which does not get skied much and had good coverage and snow once past the top. 21 runs/22.5 K vertical
Off to Heavenly today which so far only had gondola, Sky and Dipper on wind hold. We will probably drive to Stagecoach base.
Kirkwood was pretty good packed powder although rocky at the top of most runs. Snow was blowing in so at the end on the day there was two or three inches of chalk in the gullies on the Backside (Sunrise) and some other places. I could stay on chair 4 longer if the chair was fast, but quickly tire of 12 minute ride for 2 to 3 minute run and exit north towards Thunder Saddle. The entrance was very narrow and the best place I found required dropping off a three foot cornice. The first time I went down Bogie's Slide which had great snow. The second time I went further West and found Two Man Chute had a mandatory 5 feet horizontal air over rocks next to blue ice and even though I saw someone ahead of me do it, I did not try it as I was skiing alone in the PM. One Man Chute was worse so I continued to the easiest way down, single diamond Thunder Saddle which was excellent.
The Wall was open, but very lightly used and the entrance was as narrow as I've ever seen, but not icy. I did it twice and later found out that my son and his friend also did it twice on snowboards, even though my son only has about 10 days on a board. The main run on Cornice chair, Zachary looked too groomed, firm and crowded. Instead, I did Sentinel, which was also firm unless you went a little past main run, twice, Monte Wolf twice and ended my day on Olympic, which does not get skied much and had good coverage and snow once past the top. 21 runs/22.5 K vertical
Off to Heavenly today which so far only had gondola, Sky and Dipper on wind hold. We will probably drive to Stagecoach base.
with reported base depths in the 40 inch range. Also Squaw can't possibly have the 80% reported. It's kind of interesting that Alpine Meadows has been reporting "30 of 100 trails" all through the holiday period.