tseeb
Well-known member
My first one day trip since 05. It was my friends 49th birthday and we had Kirkwood tickets so I met up with three friends and left San Jose at 6 am. We added one more skier in Jackson at 8 am and arrived Kirkwood about 9:15. We parked in premium parking where nobody was collecting and were within 100 feet of The Reut lift. The overnight low at South Tahoe was 33 and Kirkwood reported 32 at 6:30 am.
First run on the Reut was OK, but snow was a little soft already. We headed for the backside on upper Shotgun which was much firmer. On the backside, three of my friends went to Cold Shoulder while I started in the ungroomed next to Elevator Shaft which was icy so I moved to the groomed run which was in good condition. From the flat at the bottom we could see them going slow as their run was very firm and even though it faces east, the cloud cover was preventing the snow for softening very fast.
I had to talk them into returning via Thunder Saddle a little before noon as they thought it would be too icy. Even the cornice entrance was skiable and we ended up continuing down Bogies Slide chute which was some of the best snow of the day. After a quick lunch break on the deck we warmed back up with a run on The Reut before moving to The Wall which was in very good shape. Some of the ungroomed was almost too soft as the two feet of new snow from last week was not consolidated by skier packing or enough melt/freeze cycles. We did at least a couple of more on The Wall before moving to high-speed Cornice chair. I was hoping they had groomed Olympic, but it was medium-sized, soft bumps with some good lines on the sides. We did a couple of runs down Sentinel to the other base before finishing at 3:30 with a run down Zachary and one more on The Reut. Snow at the very bottom was getting slushy, but the runs, especially higher up where still good.
My watch counted 22 runs and 21.5K vertical. We got a few drops of rain on the way home. Conditions may stay the same as low on the next day's at South Tahoe was also 33. I may do one more trip Mon/Tues as my son is out of school and I the days off and Northstar/Sierra tickets.
First run on the Reut was OK, but snow was a little soft already. We headed for the backside on upper Shotgun which was much firmer. On the backside, three of my friends went to Cold Shoulder while I started in the ungroomed next to Elevator Shaft which was icy so I moved to the groomed run which was in good condition. From the flat at the bottom we could see them going slow as their run was very firm and even though it faces east, the cloud cover was preventing the snow for softening very fast.
I had to talk them into returning via Thunder Saddle a little before noon as they thought it would be too icy. Even the cornice entrance was skiable and we ended up continuing down Bogies Slide chute which was some of the best snow of the day. After a quick lunch break on the deck we warmed back up with a run on The Reut before moving to The Wall which was in very good shape. Some of the ungroomed was almost too soft as the two feet of new snow from last week was not consolidated by skier packing or enough melt/freeze cycles. We did at least a couple of more on The Wall before moving to high-speed Cornice chair. I was hoping they had groomed Olympic, but it was medium-sized, soft bumps with some good lines on the sides. We did a couple of runs down Sentinel to the other base before finishing at 3:30 with a run down Zachary and one more on The Reut. Snow at the very bottom was getting slushy, but the runs, especially higher up where still good.
My watch counted 22 runs and 21.5K vertical. We got a few drops of rain on the way home. Conditions may stay the same as low on the next day's at South Tahoe was also 33. I may do one more trip Mon/Tues as my son is out of school and I the days off and Northstar/Sierra tickets.
