tseeb
Well-known member
I finally got my season started, skiing Kirkwood on Thursday 12/20. Even though it had not snowed the previous day, CA-88 had chain control due to snow and ice. We arrived about nine and parked very close to Cornice/Chair 6 base. It was windy in the parking lot, but not too bad on the lift until the very top where strong winds from W/SW ahead of predicted storm were moving snow into Kirkwood. Zachary’s, the groomer under the chair was in excellent shape, being re-filled with windsift all day which prevented it from getting icy. I met my friend, who had to pickup his pass, at the Reut/Chair 11. Chair 10/The Wall was running early in the day, but shut down well before noon and before I tried it due to wind. Chairs 2, 3 and 4 did not open.
Snow on The Reut was very nice; groomed or skier-packed powder with windsift. The runs less skied were better as the windsift was deeper. After getting tired of slow chair we moved to Cornice, which is high-speed, but was stopping a lot as the stop bar at the top was getting flipped up by the wind and they had trouble re-starting a couple of times. Since it was my first day of the season and first day of planned three days, I didn’t try any of the runs along the ridge towards Wagon Wheel Bowl although reports I saw later on TGR sounded good. I did find good windsift on less skied Monte Wolf, where gullies at the bottom of steep part were well-covered. Ungroomed Olympic also skied well. My best runs of the day were in the chute skiers left of Sentinel where snow from a couple of days earlier had not been totally packed out and a few inches of windsift had blown in. I took my one crash of the day in the chute and ended with 22 lift rides and 22.7K vertical.
Winds were strong Thursday night and Friday morning, but the storm had not yet brought any precipitation. Rather than go to Heavenly or Kirkwood where we expected most lifts to be shut down, we did the nearly one hour drive to Northstar, arriving well before 9 and parking close enough to the village to not require a shuttle. The wind was strong on Tahoe Zephyr and on Drifter run which we used to get to the Backside. We skied Backside chair what I thought was 8 times before taking a break at the top a little after 11:30, which was when it started to snow. (I’m not sure of exact count as my Avocet needs a battery change, my SkiTracks iPhone app stopped recording at 10:30 and Vail’s EpicMix skipped a lot of runs.)
After our break and a couple of runs off the East Ridge on Comstock chair, we moved to Vista chair where wind was hitting harder. The new snow was started to pile up, but it was icier underneath near the bottom as it must have warmed up there more than at Kirkwood or higher at Northstar. We took a very windy Zephyr and went into the lodge at the top to warm up. We finished our day with three runs on Lookout (chair has been renamed to Martis Camp). On the upper part, only Washoe run was open. Lower down, it was the first day for slightly steeper Martis which had picked up 3-4 inches of nearly unskied new snow. I next took upper and lower Washoe twice, where there were very few tracks and snow continued to pile up. The new snow was getting deeper and skied well on run back to the village. I logged the day at 18 lifts and 26.2K, but it could have been one more Backside chair and 28K. We heard that Backside chair closed in the afternoon due to lack of visibility.
We thought about doing Heavenly on Sat. as we were staying very close to CA base and needed to get home that evening. But they were only reporting 2" new and have trouble opening lifts with wind. Northstar claimed 10-14" and usually can run most of their lifts. So we closed up cabin and drove to Northstar. After losing control for way too long (but keeping it straight and in my lane) coming down from Brockway Summit, we got one of the last parking spots in upper Northstar lot about 9. I had three runs with a lot of untracked on Promised Land before they opened Backside. I went a little farther out than I had to on first Backside run (trees by Rail Splitter) and barely crossed any tracks. I also had a lot of untracked my next two runs in Monument Glades. After meeting friend for a quick break at Zephyr Lodge, we went to Lookout and found very deep, low-angle untracked on Washoe and slightly steeper, but more tracked on Martis. I finished the day early with a couple of runs in the trees on Comstock and even got to see very rarely operating Rendezvous chair loading. 14 runs/19.1K There was about a foot on my SUV in the 5 1/2 hours I was parked. We were worried that we'd be spending the night in Truckee as I-80 was closed part of the day, but made it over Donner Pass before dark without seeing any carnage and were back in San Jose by 7:30. Traffic looked worse coming up.
Not many pictures as I didn’t carry my camera and mostly not very good weather for pictures. Since I was there, most Tahoe ski areas have picked up another 5 feet and there have been a few in-bounds avalanches, including ones that resulted in deaths at Alpine (veteran ski patroller) and Donner Ski Ranch.
Snow on The Reut was very nice; groomed or skier-packed powder with windsift. The runs less skied were better as the windsift was deeper. After getting tired of slow chair we moved to Cornice, which is high-speed, but was stopping a lot as the stop bar at the top was getting flipped up by the wind and they had trouble re-starting a couple of times. Since it was my first day of the season and first day of planned three days, I didn’t try any of the runs along the ridge towards Wagon Wheel Bowl although reports I saw later on TGR sounded good. I did find good windsift on less skied Monte Wolf, where gullies at the bottom of steep part were well-covered. Ungroomed Olympic also skied well. My best runs of the day were in the chute skiers left of Sentinel where snow from a couple of days earlier had not been totally packed out and a few inches of windsift had blown in. I took my one crash of the day in the chute and ended with 22 lift rides and 22.7K vertical.
Winds were strong Thursday night and Friday morning, but the storm had not yet brought any precipitation. Rather than go to Heavenly or Kirkwood where we expected most lifts to be shut down, we did the nearly one hour drive to Northstar, arriving well before 9 and parking close enough to the village to not require a shuttle. The wind was strong on Tahoe Zephyr and on Drifter run which we used to get to the Backside. We skied Backside chair what I thought was 8 times before taking a break at the top a little after 11:30, which was when it started to snow. (I’m not sure of exact count as my Avocet needs a battery change, my SkiTracks iPhone app stopped recording at 10:30 and Vail’s EpicMix skipped a lot of runs.)
After our break and a couple of runs off the East Ridge on Comstock chair, we moved to Vista chair where wind was hitting harder. The new snow was started to pile up, but it was icier underneath near the bottom as it must have warmed up there more than at Kirkwood or higher at Northstar. We took a very windy Zephyr and went into the lodge at the top to warm up. We finished our day with three runs on Lookout (chair has been renamed to Martis Camp). On the upper part, only Washoe run was open. Lower down, it was the first day for slightly steeper Martis which had picked up 3-4 inches of nearly unskied new snow. I next took upper and lower Washoe twice, where there were very few tracks and snow continued to pile up. The new snow was getting deeper and skied well on run back to the village. I logged the day at 18 lifts and 26.2K, but it could have been one more Backside chair and 28K. We heard that Backside chair closed in the afternoon due to lack of visibility.
We thought about doing Heavenly on Sat. as we were staying very close to CA base and needed to get home that evening. But they were only reporting 2" new and have trouble opening lifts with wind. Northstar claimed 10-14" and usually can run most of their lifts. So we closed up cabin and drove to Northstar. After losing control for way too long (but keeping it straight and in my lane) coming down from Brockway Summit, we got one of the last parking spots in upper Northstar lot about 9. I had three runs with a lot of untracked on Promised Land before they opened Backside. I went a little farther out than I had to on first Backside run (trees by Rail Splitter) and barely crossed any tracks. I also had a lot of untracked my next two runs in Monument Glades. After meeting friend for a quick break at Zephyr Lodge, we went to Lookout and found very deep, low-angle untracked on Washoe and slightly steeper, but more tracked on Martis. I finished the day early with a couple of runs in the trees on Comstock and even got to see very rarely operating Rendezvous chair loading. 14 runs/19.1K There was about a foot on my SUV in the 5 1/2 hours I was parked. We were worried that we'd be spending the night in Truckee as I-80 was closed part of the day, but made it over Donner Pass before dark without seeing any carnage and were back in San Jose by 7:30. Traffic looked worse coming up.
Not many pictures as I didn’t carry my camera and mostly not very good weather for pictures. Since I was there, most Tahoe ski areas have picked up another 5 feet and there have been a few in-bounds avalanches, including ones that resulted in deaths at Alpine (veteran ski patroller) and Donner Ski Ranch.
