tseeb
Well-known member
We did not get to Kirkwood until after 1 pm as I had to replace a thermostat in one bedroom that stopped working after my 2 year-old grand-nephew knocked the cover off during Thanksgiving and a toilet fill tube that apparantly failed in the last month when temps were as low as -10 at South Lake Tahoe. It was 18 degrees in the cabin kitchen when we arrived and only 35 there by morning as I didn't crank up heat all the way and it was 6 overnight. I saw Tim Cohee (Kirkwood's former president, now in Real Estate there) on RSN TV talking about strong winds from the east that may affect lift operations so we were not in that big of a hurry.
We parked in almost the same spot across from Timber Creek. I did not waste my limited time skiing that lift with my son. Instead I went to Cornice and did a run down Sentinel, then Olympic. Both had very nice packed powder; Sentinel was smooth and Olympic had well-spaced, soft bumps down the right side. I saw my son skiing towards the lift so I waited at the top and we took Monte Wolf which was getting covered with wind-moved snow that skied very well. It was windy at the very top, but not bad once you got down 50 feet. We went up Chair 10 which was mostly protected from the wind and was also getting filled in with excellent, dry, wind-drifted snow.
We took a run on chair 2 to get some sun and found some crusty untracked. We went up again and skied down High Whiskey where I was able to farther right than most of the snwboarders and come down some untracked by carefully picking a line between rocks. It was a lot easier to get back to chair 10 for me on skis, but my son was not very far behind. I lost him on the way down and went to Cornice, where I took Olympic to a right turn that drops into a very steep face, then gully that I found last year. I hit one rock up high, then found great snow the rest of the way. I was tempted to take another run, but was already past our quitting time so I headed to the car. I should have done another as my son liked chair 10 so much he did it again and I waited almost half an hour. My lowest runs/vertical in many years, but I hit it hard since I was only out a little over 2 hours and I won't be back until 2010. 9 runs/11K vertical.
We parked in almost the same spot across from Timber Creek. I did not waste my limited time skiing that lift with my son. Instead I went to Cornice and did a run down Sentinel, then Olympic. Both had very nice packed powder; Sentinel was smooth and Olympic had well-spaced, soft bumps down the right side. I saw my son skiing towards the lift so I waited at the top and we took Monte Wolf which was getting covered with wind-moved snow that skied very well. It was windy at the very top, but not bad once you got down 50 feet. We went up Chair 10 which was mostly protected from the wind and was also getting filled in with excellent, dry, wind-drifted snow.
We took a run on chair 2 to get some sun and found some crusty untracked. We went up again and skied down High Whiskey where I was able to farther right than most of the snwboarders and come down some untracked by carefully picking a line between rocks. It was a lot easier to get back to chair 10 for me on skis, but my son was not very far behind. I lost him on the way down and went to Cornice, where I took Olympic to a right turn that drops into a very steep face, then gully that I found last year. I hit one rock up high, then found great snow the rest of the way. I was tempted to take another run, but was already past our quitting time so I headed to the car. I should have done another as my son liked chair 10 so much he did it again and I waited almost half an hour. My lowest runs/vertical in many years, but I hit it hard since I was only out a little over 2 hours and I won't be back until 2010. 9 runs/11K vertical.
