Kirkwood, CA April 2 and 6, 2023

tseeb

Well-known member
Sunday 4/2/23 I left San Jose a couple of min. after 5 and got to Kirkwood about 8:20. There were only a couple of places where there was a little ice on road, but many places with 20’ walls of snow that often overhang the road and may eventually fall onto it. Visibility on drive was bad due to cloud layer from Iron Mountain to 8000' pass before Silver Lake.

I loaded Timber Creek a couple of min. after 9 and took a warmup lap there. Snow seemed very slick, probably from a melt-freeze and it made me wonder if I should have sharpened my edges as it may have been my first day on hard snow this year. I took three laps on Cornice enjoying freshly groomed Janek twice and Sentinel once before growing line (6-7 minutes singles on 3rd lap) drove me to the Wall. While the top of Cornice was below cloud layer, the top couple hundred feet of the Wall were not. Wind was strong at top of both lifts. Backside/Sunrise chair never opened. The entry into Wall was smoother than usual and edgeable. I skied main Wall run once, the filled in Notch Chute from the traverse once and very well covered Headwaters once which led me to run of the day, Conestoga. While most of it is reachable from Reut chair, there was a narrow groomed path higher going towards Norms Nose and the whole run was well groomed and getting blown in snow.

I moved to sunnier Caples Crest that I rode 4x, skiing all three groomed runs returning to chair before exiting via Low Whiskey. I was able to get to Reut which I rode once skiing Conestoga, then I rode the Wall where visibility had deteriorated and was very bad for the top third. I went into 7800 and had a $9 Hazy Little Thing. They were only $6-7 last year and they still sell Modelo for $3 (next time). I took longish hike back to the Reut which I rode once, skiing Conestoga again before moving to Cornice for 5 laps. Janek was still very good, especially the mostly overlooked groomed ramp that returned to Zacharys. I also went left halfway down Janek into area that was cliffs in Dec. and now is well covered. Sentinel was also very good, getting some blown in snow. Since it was my first day in over 3 weeks and I planned to ski at least 4 more days and I didn’t know how much shoveling I may have needed to do at cabin, I quit before 2:30 with 24.5K.

No skiing pictures as it was too cold and windy. This is by 7300' Silver Lake about 5 miles before Kirkwood.
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Bota Box skis. Those are not stickers. Icelantic skis. Guy I rode lift with said his friend was rep for winery and he sold him skis for $100.
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Leaving Kirkwood.
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Neighbor said nobody had parked in cabin driveway since I did more than 3 weeks ago. I had no problem getting in. Roads in area area a lot wider and you mostly see pavement.
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Last edited:
Thursday 4/6/23
I’m adding this to Sunday report as like Sunday it was mostly a groomer day, although snow was packed powder vs. mostly refrozen on Sun. I skied with friend who is rehabbing a knee problem. His family has had a place in Kirkwood for 48 of the 50 years the ski area has been there. He said lot originally was $2500 to lease, then they paid $2500 more to buy it. To get from parking area to his cabin, you have to climb steps cut into 20’+ snowbank.
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The two homes on road before his. Snow shovelers are in high demand at Kirkwood, making as much as $100/hr.
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My trip from So. Tahoe was quick at 45 minutes. I got the last parking space along road near cat crossing and loaded Timber Creek a little after 10.

After riding it and Cornice, I stopped at top of Sentinel to tighten my boots and talked to couple (only other people there) about the difference between crowds at Kirkwood vs. Heavenly where we’d all been on Wed. At Heavenly, by catching first Tram I could only safely rip groomers on first two runs and Sky chair line was already building at 9:30. At Kirkwood there were no lines all day and on many runs there was nobody ahead of you for 1/4 to 1/2 mile and I opened it up many times.

We skied groomed Janek on Cornice a couple of times before moving to Backside via the Reut chair. We skied the main groomer Elevator Shaft twice and groomer to lookers right, Cold Shoulder. Then after skiing top half of Cold Should, I skied Thunder Saddle then rode Caples Crest and skied Low Whiskey while he skied past bottom of Sunrise and used built in 1972 Iron Horse double to return to front by skiing a Caples Crest run. We rode and skied Reut a couple times, catching the rope drop into the race course on our last lap. Conditions were great as it was the first above freezing day after the 9” earlier in week. We did find snow starting to get a little sticky when we continued after Sentinel to flatter Timber Creek. After clear morning, very scattered, high clouds slowly moved in from the N later.

We skied Cornice a few more times and did one Wall lap before a last run on Sentinel. Wind break on top of Wall is at least 20' high. They never put a lift in huge W-facing bowl at top, maybe due to exposure to both sun and wind. Backside is further than you'd think from top of Wall as it's on other side of peak behind my friend.
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I respected the sign trying to keep people off the cat road at the end of the day, instead coming down run they’ve groomed to road that ends about 500’ from my car vs. the 50’ feet away at cat road. Patrol warned me about it on Sunday and they’ve moved sign to where it’s harder to miss. But there is no sign at bottom so you can walk up?
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We quit just before 3. I had almost 23K for the day and 129K for my 5 days. After dropping friend at his place, I made it home in 3 1/2 hours even with some traffic before and then most of the rest of way after my only stop to fill up with $4.19 cash regular (cheap for CA) just before getting on Highway 99 by Stockton. Burnt trees from Caldor fire.
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A couple of more road pictures. First is entrance to Carson Spur, second is on Spur, last is snowbank along 88.
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I have a few more pictures on my camera, some of my friend skiing, but it's still in my car so will have to add later.
 
-Those house pics are frameable! (if it was mine)
To get from parking area to his cabin, you have to climb steps cut into 20’+ snowbank.
I've seen some pics/video of houses intended for summer only in the sierras that are so buried they are turning out to be difficult for hired snow shovelers to even find. Can't imagine the cost of hiring a crew to snowmobile in to shovel snow off to prevent roof collapse for a summer place like that. I would also think profitability is not that great for hotels and condo rental complexes in much of the sierra this year with the added plowing/trucking away/shoveling of roofs. A lot of the shoveling is not just expensive per hour; but compacted, concrete like work that takes a LOT of hours to do as well.

I love that in the 3rd pic you can see smoke from the chimney so you know they are actually home too! Crazy stuff.
 
A few pictures from my camera. First is snowbanks made by blowers at parking before base of chairs 5 and 6.
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The next three are of friend skiing the Wall, his only ungroomed run of the day and it was his idea.
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