tseeb
Well-known member
It did not take me very many days to get a Kirkwood day from my restricted Heavenly/Northstar pass. I left San Jose shortly before 6 am and arrived Kirkwood (177 miles) three hours later driving non-stop. I parked near Hole-in-the-Wall chair and waited in short line to get a ticket by showing my pass. I went up that chair, then skied over to Reut chair. I took one warmup run down one of the easier runs. The corduroy skied well, but you could tell it was going to get fast. Next I followed somebody who was killing it down ungroomed Upper Comstock and found it dangerous, fast, narrow, thin, rocky, and very icy. Part of the traverse to chair 2 to get to the Backside was as bad I remember seeing it, ungroomed, not close to level, icy and rocky. The run from chair 2 to the Backside was following an unusual routing to find snow.
I rode the long slow Backside four times, which is a lot for me, but having company every time helped. I took all three groomed runs and found mostly good, fast snow with some unusual routing towards the bottom as coverage on Backside is usually many times more. A skier from Antioch and I had enough and took somewhat dangerous entrance into Thunder Saddle, followed by some good un-refrozen snow. Staying right and going into Two Man Chute may have been the best route, but we passed it and went down main run which was firm to very firm.
Next we moved to high-speed Cornice chair where all the corduroy had been scraped off and it was very fast. There were piles of loose snow, but there were many firm places in between. The two groomed runs were challenging; the guy I was skiing with wanted to try East-facing and bumpy Monte Wolf and I found it so bad I bailed through the trees back to Zachary. I ended my morning with one run down, getting ever faster and firmer Sentinel, then stayed on run between Ditch of Doom and Trench of Terror, which both looked too narrow and firm for a full-size person. I decided to take one run on Hole-in-the-Wall to get to 15K vertical as it was getting so firm that I was thinking I could be done for the day. I rode the lift with an elderly Kirkwood regular who tipped me off to Lower Conestoga and Jim’s, a steep, ungroomed run with moderate bumps skiers right of Sentinel.
After a fairly long break I came out again and thought it may have warmed up a little. I skied both sides of Conestoga and found very good snow, although the debris on the snow made me glad I had put in and was using my rock skis, not my wider skis that had fresh tune. I think it really was a longboard day as it was firm and fast enough that a 210 cm edge was needed. I really had only hit one rock very hard all morning, even going fast over firm snow.
After two runs on Reut, I went up The Wall, which I was surprised to see people skiing early in the morning. The entrance was as scary as I have ever skied it, but one successful turn and traverse got me to some dry, loose snow skiers left of main run. Then, I cut skiers right into a gully that also held good snow, but not as much as higher up. After skiing the Wall, everything off the Reut was now easy. Next time up, they were removing the signs and dropping the rope on Race course under the chair and the groomed, but barely skied steep corduroy was good enough to repeat, then I did one more Conestoga run which was still good.
I went up Cornice and spotted enough loose snow along the left edge of Zachary’s to make me try it. It was mostly good, but there were a couple of places where you had to cross very firm snow to next pile of soft snow. My last run, I skied Jim’s and it was probably the best snow of the day. Everyone was struggling down Sentinel (definitely advanced this day), where heavy traffic and many days of grooming had scraped it into a very firm surface. A couple of hundred feet to the left, the snow was very good. I finished with 23 runs/24.6K vertical and think I had access to a better variety of more challenging terrain than is open at Squaw or exists at Northstar.
I rode the long slow Backside four times, which is a lot for me, but having company every time helped. I took all three groomed runs and found mostly good, fast snow with some unusual routing towards the bottom as coverage on Backside is usually many times more. A skier from Antioch and I had enough and took somewhat dangerous entrance into Thunder Saddle, followed by some good un-refrozen snow. Staying right and going into Two Man Chute may have been the best route, but we passed it and went down main run which was firm to very firm.
Next we moved to high-speed Cornice chair where all the corduroy had been scraped off and it was very fast. There were piles of loose snow, but there were many firm places in between. The two groomed runs were challenging; the guy I was skiing with wanted to try East-facing and bumpy Monte Wolf and I found it so bad I bailed through the trees back to Zachary. I ended my morning with one run down, getting ever faster and firmer Sentinel, then stayed on run between Ditch of Doom and Trench of Terror, which both looked too narrow and firm for a full-size person. I decided to take one run on Hole-in-the-Wall to get to 15K vertical as it was getting so firm that I was thinking I could be done for the day. I rode the lift with an elderly Kirkwood regular who tipped me off to Lower Conestoga and Jim’s, a steep, ungroomed run with moderate bumps skiers right of Sentinel.
After a fairly long break I came out again and thought it may have warmed up a little. I skied both sides of Conestoga and found very good snow, although the debris on the snow made me glad I had put in and was using my rock skis, not my wider skis that had fresh tune. I think it really was a longboard day as it was firm and fast enough that a 210 cm edge was needed. I really had only hit one rock very hard all morning, even going fast over firm snow.
After two runs on Reut, I went up The Wall, which I was surprised to see people skiing early in the morning. The entrance was as scary as I have ever skied it, but one successful turn and traverse got me to some dry, loose snow skiers left of main run. Then, I cut skiers right into a gully that also held good snow, but not as much as higher up. After skiing the Wall, everything off the Reut was now easy. Next time up, they were removing the signs and dropping the rope on Race course under the chair and the groomed, but barely skied steep corduroy was good enough to repeat, then I did one more Conestoga run which was still good.
I went up Cornice and spotted enough loose snow along the left edge of Zachary’s to make me try it. It was mostly good, but there were a couple of places where you had to cross very firm snow to next pile of soft snow. My last run, I skied Jim’s and it was probably the best snow of the day. Everyone was struggling down Sentinel (definitely advanced this day), where heavy traffic and many days of grooming had scraped it into a very firm surface. A couple of hundred feet to the left, the snow was very good. I finished with 23 runs/24.6K vertical and think I had access to a better variety of more challenging terrain than is open at Squaw or exists at Northstar.
