Heavenly, almost all NV and Kirkwood, CA 4/28-29/2012

Since my wife took Friday 4/13 off, the best she could do on Friday 4/27 was get off at 1:30 PM. That meant we missed the worst of the traffic leaving the Bay Area Friday afternoon, but also missed the best day skiing. Heavenly had 3-4” new Thursday night and it was 24 Friday morning so snow was excellent according to all reports, even from those who got there late. Temperature at South Lake Tahoe dipped into the very high 20s in South Tahoe early Saturday morning, so skiing exceeded expectations for the end of April. These were two bonus weekends at Heavenly where they originally were scheduled to close on 4/15. Their plan was to run the gondola and Tamarack and Dipper, plus Gunbarrel in the afternoon. Gunbarrel did not make it past the first weekend, burning off as temp in SLT was 73 both days.

We got on the gondola shortly after nine, sharing a cabin with the guy whose picture I took on 4/4 when he was on top on Monument Peak. After a couple of groomers on Dipper chair, I took a run on Milky Way Bowl. The traverses that got you higher on the face below Monument Peak all required removing skis so I headed down the center of the bowl and found some lightly tracked day-old snow softening in the hot sun. From bottom of Dipper chair, we saw a lot of people coming down Comet run so we did the very short push towards the top of not-running Comet chair. We found good snow at the top, but the sunny side towards the bottom was already getting very soft. We did repeat it a couple of more times in the morning, keeping to the shadier side towards the bottom. I also repeated Milky Way Bowl and found some softened untracked.

Very short lines developed on only two chairs running. I found some challenge on skiers left of Dipper Bowl, then found better snow skiers right, which I repeated twice, starting in trees near top of Dipper chair. I also skied Little Dipper Run, under Comet chair, a couple of times, ducking into the trees to find a little more softening untracked where run was too moguled for my liking. I also skied a couple of runs skiers right of northwest facing Tamarack chair. The lowest run, at the bottom of upper face of Comet run, had burned off and was closed. The first run, Sam’s Dream, had good snow, although it was narrowed by exposed rocks in many places. The next run down, that starts at top of Comet chair and goes to Tamarack, had dirty snow at the entrance and was even narrower and not as good, but still skiable. After a late lunch at Tamarack lodge and one more CA trail run from Tamarack chair for my wife and two for me, we downloaded the gondola about 2:30. People with skis were still going up. 19K vertical

We cleaned and packed up cabin and got on the road to Kirkwood by 8:40, arriving before 9:30 to a mostly full parking lot before chairs 5 and 6. I took a quick run on softening east-facing Zachary’s from Cornice chair then met my wife at Solitude chair. We skied lower Monte Wolf to The Reut chair. Snow was still firm in places as overnight low at SLT was 30. Even though Kirkwood is over 1,500 feet higher, the low was probably similar as valley often seems to hold heat. Groomed run we skied on Reut chair was excellent as it is north-facing enough that it had not been hit by hot morning sun. We repeated it a few times and then I skied softening ungroomed under the chair which was also great.

Kirkwood ran The Reut until about 11 am, which was great for my wife as Solitude is not challenging enough for her, while Cornice and The Wall wear her out or scare her, respectively. I moved to Cornice and took a fast lap on Sentinel, then skied still-challenging Olympic and Zachary, where snow was still holding up well until the bottom. I met my wife and went to the car to drop her jacket and my vest and loaded up my big pants pockets with two beers and a water. We went up Cornice together twice, each time sharing a beer. The first time we skied Olympic, which was sking well, but it was challenging enough that my wife had to take a few breaks to catch her breath. She like Zachary’s better and I showed her a steep chute where a 2 foot plus chunk of rock had broken off and rolled down the snow since I had taken it earlier. After showing my wife a shadier run at the bottom and how snow in terrain park was holding up better than on sunnier run, I moved to The Wall which at a little after 11 replaced The Reut as one of Kirkwood’s four operating chairs.

After enduring a long stoppage on The Wall, I found great snow almost all the way down. I skied the main face, then went into ungroomed, just skiers right of the chair, where it was softening and getting close to corn, especially for only being two days after Kirkwood had received a few new inches. Lower down, I cut right and found snow that was too soft where in the sun, but smooth and untracked in the trees and the shady edge where a run flattened out. For my last Wall run (and hopefully not last run of the season), I skied Headwaters, under Thimble Peak and closer to The Cirque, where snow was excellent. I followed same route through the middle and snow was even better. Then I cut left into west-facing Waterfall, where chutes to the left had burnt off, but ridge was still good although Gully at the bottom was getting soft. My wife had taken three runs on high-speed Cornice while I only got two on The Wall. We quit at 1. I had 16K vertical. I could have gone longer, but we heard Kirkwood announced they will re-open Friday to Sunday the first weekend on May so I will probably be back. The costumes and craziness that was already well under way will have to wait another week to finish.

After changing into shorts and sandals at the car, we had a excellent salumi (three kinds – all $25/lb – their spelling) and bread lunch, before leaving at 1:45. Coming down CA-88, we took Shake Ridge Road to Fiddletown, then cut across on Ostrom Road to California’s Shenandoah Valley where we tasted at Karmére and Helwig wineries, both highly recommended. This area now has about 30 wineries. We had not been there for about 20 years, when they had less than 10. At Karmére, we bought a one liter jug of Naughty Bawdy red wine. The label has a drawing of The Temperance Tart, named after former owners of property who supposedly said “vines would never darken their land”. The tasting room manager asked if we liked anything else. When I said the Primabera (Primitivo/Barbera blend) was excellent, she gave us a $26 bottle since it was our first visit. We went less than a mile down the hill to the other side of the road where Helwig has a great spot with four similar looking metal buildings including an open-walled one with patio furniture that has a view stretching over green foothills to the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys to the Sierras. We enjoyed some of our tasting there with cheese and crackers from our ice chest and may have to return for one of their summer concerts.

My question now is do I return next Friday/Saturday when 32 degree lows are predicted or do I go over the weekend to catch what should be Kirkwood’s last day on Sunday and there is a 40% chance of showers late Saturday? I am still blacked out at Kirkwood this year on Saturdays, but a friend and I have Alpine tickets so we’d go there Saturday. For next year I added Saturdays at Kirkwood and Northstar for $40 more, which easily seems worth it to me. I also need to decide if it’s worthwhile to get my wife a pass. She barely broke even with five days (all in April) on her pass this season due to changing jobs between Christmas and New Year’s, poor early season conditions and a lot of weekend storms later in the season.

A few more pictures.