tseeb
Well-known member
Friend and I left San Jose about 5:20. As we were getting on the freeway I realized I’d left my phone at home. He offered to return the 10-15 minutes to get it, but I’ll survive without although photos will be delayed lacking. We got to Kirkwood a before 9 and were in line for chair 7/Timber Creek about 9:20. They were doing a lot of blasting and announced that chairs 5, 6, 7 and 9 would not open until 10:15 and chairs 1, 10 and 11 not until 11, partially due to rime, mostly due to avy control. Kirkwood was part of the biggest “the ugliest snowfall forecast variance to the downside that I can remember in 19 years of forecasting, and at least for the 9 years I've been keeping track of variances to forecast. It's 2025 and we still can't get a single forecast model to make an accurate forecast for some storms”. Quote is from Bryan Allegretto, Open Snow Tahoe. Kirkwood was predicted to get 32-40” Mon night thru Tues and got 9” that skied more like 1-4.
They overestimated the time to open as chair 7 opened about 10. Friend and I took two laps on it before I moved to chair 6/Cornice which had a long enough singles line that I joined another single in regular line that was about 5 minutes. I followed Mike, who is from my area and has a place in Pioneer, less than an hour before Kirkwood if road is open, on a high traverse into Palisades Bowl where we skied very nice smooth untracked. It was not powder, more like deep windsift and a lot of fun although there was an icy patches where wind had hit hard and I saw some barely covered rocks on top of ridge halfway down. Next time up I skied then hiked (skis on) towards Corner Chute, partway to the Wall. I was barely able to drop in where patrol had blasted a block off cornice and traverse under more cornice to get to a smooth chute where I skied the half that had not slid. A lot of boarders were hiking highly but I don’t think they got much more for their effort. There was a long fracture line lookers right almost to the top of the Wall.
Friend and I met at 11 at base of chair 11 (both Reut and Wall opened before 11) and took a lap into smooth Shotgun. I moved to The Wall for two laps, first skiing smooth snow under chair at top, then skiing very untracked above top of Reut and repeated Shotgun. Second lap I skied North Chute going high up on very steep, smooth walls for most of my turns. After a lunch break at very busy Monte Wolfe’s we did a race course lap on the Reut, then moved to Cornice where my fried did two laps before finishing his day with some cruisers on Timber Creek. I skied the first Sentinel lap with him finding middle and right developing small bumps and not that great. I skied left edge next lap and found much better snow. When loading Cornice again, I heard chair 4/Backside/Sunrise had opened. I found mostly surprisingly smooth snow in thin trees and left edge of Monte Wolfe, then took the Wall to get to chair 2 (which I’d heard had big line hours before Backside opened). Getting there I found and skied run of the day, Eagle Bowl, very smooth and supportive E-facing 2-3”. I repeated it on a later/last Wall lap, both times traversing to get into more NE-facing chute then trees above top of chair 1.
I skied some untracked above and to right of where most going to Backside had gone. Backside had huge line, plus chair takes 12 min without stops and I’d told friend I’d be to his truck before 3, so I skied to and rode chair 3. I skied chair 3 getting further above and to right of where people going to backside had skied finding more untracked. Backside line had not gone down so I rode chair 3 again and skied High Whiskey finding top of steep pitch above Village firm as it’s very exposed to sun and wind. Snow got better once below big tree and it was hard to exit a gully in high enough to get to the Wall chair without a lot of walking (but I did). After repeating Eagle Bowl, I finished my day skiing Olympic, cutting into steep chute to right, then riding Timber Creek and skiing always fun Ditch of Doom. My Avocet counted 20 runs and 21,350.
They overestimated the time to open as chair 7 opened about 10. Friend and I took two laps on it before I moved to chair 6/Cornice which had a long enough singles line that I joined another single in regular line that was about 5 minutes. I followed Mike, who is from my area and has a place in Pioneer, less than an hour before Kirkwood if road is open, on a high traverse into Palisades Bowl where we skied very nice smooth untracked. It was not powder, more like deep windsift and a lot of fun although there was an icy patches where wind had hit hard and I saw some barely covered rocks on top of ridge halfway down. Next time up I skied then hiked (skis on) towards Corner Chute, partway to the Wall. I was barely able to drop in where patrol had blasted a block off cornice and traverse under more cornice to get to a smooth chute where I skied the half that had not slid. A lot of boarders were hiking highly but I don’t think they got much more for their effort. There was a long fracture line lookers right almost to the top of the Wall.
Friend and I met at 11 at base of chair 11 (both Reut and Wall opened before 11) and took a lap into smooth Shotgun. I moved to The Wall for two laps, first skiing smooth snow under chair at top, then skiing very untracked above top of Reut and repeated Shotgun. Second lap I skied North Chute going high up on very steep, smooth walls for most of my turns. After a lunch break at very busy Monte Wolfe’s we did a race course lap on the Reut, then moved to Cornice where my fried did two laps before finishing his day with some cruisers on Timber Creek. I skied the first Sentinel lap with him finding middle and right developing small bumps and not that great. I skied left edge next lap and found much better snow. When loading Cornice again, I heard chair 4/Backside/Sunrise had opened. I found mostly surprisingly smooth snow in thin trees and left edge of Monte Wolfe, then took the Wall to get to chair 2 (which I’d heard had big line hours before Backside opened). Getting there I found and skied run of the day, Eagle Bowl, very smooth and supportive E-facing 2-3”. I repeated it on a later/last Wall lap, both times traversing to get into more NE-facing chute then trees above top of chair 1.
I skied some untracked above and to right of where most going to Backside had gone. Backside had huge line, plus chair takes 12 min without stops and I’d told friend I’d be to his truck before 3, so I skied to and rode chair 3. I skied chair 3 getting further above and to right of where people going to backside had skied finding more untracked. Backside line had not gone down so I rode chair 3 again and skied High Whiskey finding top of steep pitch above Village firm as it’s very exposed to sun and wind. Snow got better once below big tree and it was hard to exit a gully in high enough to get to the Wall chair without a lot of walking (but I did). After repeating Eagle Bowl, I finished my day skiing Olympic, cutting into steep chute to right, then riding Timber Creek and skiing always fun Ditch of Doom. My Avocet counted 20 runs and 21,350.