tseeb
Well-known member
Days 31-33 for me. Now up to 15 in CA and 18 out of state/country
Monday 3/23 Alpine do they still call it Meadows? Again Squaw's issues pulled it down
Tuesday 3/24 Kirkwood
Wednesday 3/25 Heavenly
The latest prediction I saw for what may have been the last storm of the season (or at least when more than half of the ski areas around Tahoe are still open) was for 0-4" at Kirkwood and 3-7" at Alpine and Squaw with storm favoring the NW corner of Tahoe area. All Sierra passes had chain control early which made my decision where to go early Monday morning harder. I wanted to stop at Orchard Supply Hardware on way up and the last one on way to Kirkwood was in Stockton which would have required me waiting 1/2 hour for it to open, so I decided to drive to one just S of Sacramento which also put me in some traffic getting past that city and gave me a longer drive. There was no longer chain control when I went over Donner Summit where snow stopped and most people took it easy going down the drier E side. I turned off I-80 not much after 9, drove to Alpine, signed paperwork to get MCP and was hiking towards Summit chair at 9:40.
Alpine claimed 4" new and it snowed on and off in the morning, and snowed hard enough before noon to re-surface some of the runs. For my first five laps on Summit, I was not finding enough untracked snow for even 4-5 decent turns and I found the hard surface underneath way too often. While there probably was the claimed 4" new at the top, the visibility was poor, and new snow seemed like it was only 1-2" at bottom. I started with skiing the right side of Alpine Bowl, then went over ridge to Charity. My next run I struggled with poor visibility in Wolverine Bowl, then followed suggestion of guy I rode chair with into Waterfall. He said if you skied in the troughs, the snow was deep. I found it slabby, but it could have been lack of commitment. My third run I went towards the Palisades, but even there and down lower on High Yellow, I was still only finding a couple of good untracked turns. I repeated that run, found a little better snow but got too far out and had to cross a small flowing creek to exit. I did another Wolverine Bowl run, where there was still a lot of low visibility, untracked, but I was still not skiing it well so when I got closer to the bottom I stopped for an attitude adjustment, courtesy of one of my UT friends.
Next run I followed the guy I rode lift with into D6 chute at the top and since he had skied most of it out, I floated over barely covered rocks towards D-7 where I had some untracked. We were almost the first to go towards the Sisters and I had some good steep untracked turns towards Corkscrew, but quickly got rocked out and did not want to follow long sideslip someone had done. I knew where I wanted to enter the Middle Sister gully but it required gingerly stepping through then over some rocks, then floating some while hoping I did not break through to rocks that I knew were barely covered. I was lucky that I did not hit anything and found only one set of tracks in gully and slope below which made trouble getting there worth it, but not something I would repeat. Next run I was able to find clean entrance into Peter's Peril which had been skied out at top, but I found some steep untracked lower down. My next run was Palisade to High Yellow where I found better snow than two previous times by entering the steeps earlier.
I took a break from 12:30-1, going to my very close SUV for a sandwich, beer and chips. After my lunch I did the much shorter walk to slow and flat until the top Hot Wheels chair, the only other chair open. I skied far right into a run signed East Creek and found some good snow, but had to wonder if I was skiing on what was dirt the previous day and was only covered with 4-5" of snow. I returned to Summit and with slightly better visibility found a good untracked line in Wolverine Bowl, but did not want to brave going toward the Sisters or down Waterfall again. Next time up I skied Peril Ridge where some of my turns were made in deep new snow. For my last run, I hiked part of Alpine's High Traverse, not to the closed Backside, but to ski the Saddle which skied well, but was not enough turns to justify doing it again. I quit at 2:30 with over 18.5K. That was the earliest I've quit this year when I did not need to be somewhere.
In retrospect, I should have skipped the hardware store stop and gone to Kirkwood where I would have had much less competition for the new snow. A lot of Alpine got skied out quickly as upper lifts at Squaw did not open due to winds over the top blowing out of the W (actually a little N at 280-285) at 35-40 mph with gusts to 55-60 into early afternoon. Winds also affected Heavenly where they had to close the gondola and Tamarack chair before 10, but unusually were able to run Sky chair to the top of CA. I went to Kirkwood on Tuesday 3/24 and got on Cornice chair at 9 am with Kirkwood resident who also made me sorry I had not gone there Monday as he said there were a couple of hours of powder skiing right down the runs.
I skied a warm-up run on Sentinel which had been lightly groomed and still some room for tracks on the edges. Next time out I hiked towards False Peak and saw a lot of untracked below Cornice, but there was a lot of exposure between rocks and I did not want to launch it and find a rock covered with only the 6" new. So I continued a little further and found a couple of turns then traversed to untracked between what looked like wet slide paths. The snow was heavy and there were a lot of obstacles that are not usually visible in this area.
I got a call from friend who arrived Timber Creek base and wanted to use one of my buddy tickets for his son. I tried to traverse to the left, but it looked way to thin to cross a couple of gullies so I continued to the Drain where many places where creek had made holes in the snow were marked. I went up Cornice again and skied Olympic, then into the trees to the left to meet friend and his son. It was his son's first time skiing in US since he did an exchange program in Japan where he skied twice before and once after getting seriously hurt, hit by a car on campus. I skied with them while they warmed up on TC lift, then we all went up Cornice and skied Sentinel which is a little too steep at the top for intermediates. Kirkwood made the questionable decision to close chair 11 (The Reut) along with chairs 1-4 (access to and the Backside.Sunrise lift) after the weekend. That leaves intermediates with high-speed, but flat TC or slightly steeper, but low-speed and only about 650 vertical Solitude or more difficult, but high-speed Cornice with over 1300 vertical. The Wall also services chair 11 terrain, but entrance is way too much for all but strongest intermediates.
I moved to the Wall and took three runs there. Snow was good at the top, but mostly tracked out and scraped off in some places, then got a little sticky at the bottom. I did find some untracked going far skier's right and also by traversing far to left. Snow was heavier than previous day at Alpine and I don't think it froze very much overnight, but big skis with a lot of rocker made it enjoyable in many places. I took one more lap on Cornice and skied too-soft Zachary under the chair and went in for lunch.
After lunch we took a warm-up run on Solitude, then went up Cornice. I thought my friend's decision to take Zachary was bad as I had skied it before lunch. I recommended Sentinel but his son did not like the entrance. I skied big soft bumps on Janek then ducked through trees back to Zachary about half-way down. I thought my friend was near the top, but was not sure so I skied down and rode lift up. My friend was about 100 feet down the run and was side-stepping back up to his son who was laying on the snow about 20 feet above him and only about 10 feet down the run. (Later his son said he was suffering from vertigo.) After helping him get turned to his other side as he was stuck halfway there and suggesting he hike up 10 feet and go down Sentinel instead or ride the lift the other 1300+ feet down, I could tell they did not want my help so I hiked up and over to Sentinel. I was surprised how scraped off and dirty looking the snow was at the entrance most people were using. If they only went a little farther over it was packed powder and the tree-line at left still had some decent cutup powder.
I went up The Wall and did not see my friend and his son at the top so I did not have to call patrol. It started snowing hard after threatening a couple of times. I skied down Headwaters which had very good snow, then went above top of Reut and skied upper Shotgun and I then got a little untracked further to right. For my 2nd Wall run after lunch, I traversed left and skied Notch Chute, then got out of it before it got too narrow and skied steep ridge on left. I took another Sentinel to Timber Creek and found it was almost raining at the base. I quit about 3 pm with over 22K.
On Wednesday, we went to Heavenly where you had a choice of many intermediate groomers that skied well, but had too many beginners on them. The only more challenging run of any length I skied was Milky Way Bowl where they warned you with sign at top that walking was required and my usual high entry would have required removing. The first time down I had to remove skis for the uphill that you can usually tuck after the bowl. I had to remove skis for about 100 feet. The second time down I removed skis at top to get the higher entrance. On the exit, I traversed high enough to go above top of closed Mott Canyon chair and did not have to remove skis again. The bowl had a couple of inches of new snow that had not been skied out. New snow was over mostly hard surface early on my first run before noon, and skied better on my 2nd run after 2:30.
I also found a little unskied new snow just left of open with obstacle warning Jack's and at top of California Trail where early E wind was moving some in. Before lunch, I skied to bottom of Stagecoach where snow was not as brown as expected, but it was so soft that I did not want to ski it again. I did want to ski too short Upper North Bowl and was able to find a path from near top of Olympic through where East Peak chair was taken out long ago (to Tony Crocker's everlasting dismay) even though run from the top was closed. I had to take off my skis once for less than 50 feet, then again for a couple of feet to get past a rock. I put them back on quickly, even though I could only go another 100 feet or so as I was post-holing, before I had to take them for what was probably 1,000' walk down road to where I could ski to Comet run. Hopefully nobody follows my tracks. I quit skiing and downloaded tram about 3:15 pm with over 24K. The tram operator said this was the first year you could never ski to CA base for the whole season and that Heavenly had run a month more of snow-making than they planned whatever that means.
I thought about driving home this evening, but am not very motivated to pick up and clean cabin, then drive for four hrs. Instead, I will go to some casino Happy Hours, post this and try to ride bike or hike to beach for sunset, then ski Kirkwood for a couple of hours on way home. More pictures will have to wait.
Monday 3/23 Alpine do they still call it Meadows? Again Squaw's issues pulled it down
Tuesday 3/24 Kirkwood
Wednesday 3/25 Heavenly
The latest prediction I saw for what may have been the last storm of the season (or at least when more than half of the ski areas around Tahoe are still open) was for 0-4" at Kirkwood and 3-7" at Alpine and Squaw with storm favoring the NW corner of Tahoe area. All Sierra passes had chain control early which made my decision where to go early Monday morning harder. I wanted to stop at Orchard Supply Hardware on way up and the last one on way to Kirkwood was in Stockton which would have required me waiting 1/2 hour for it to open, so I decided to drive to one just S of Sacramento which also put me in some traffic getting past that city and gave me a longer drive. There was no longer chain control when I went over Donner Summit where snow stopped and most people took it easy going down the drier E side. I turned off I-80 not much after 9, drove to Alpine, signed paperwork to get MCP and was hiking towards Summit chair at 9:40.
Alpine claimed 4" new and it snowed on and off in the morning, and snowed hard enough before noon to re-surface some of the runs. For my first five laps on Summit, I was not finding enough untracked snow for even 4-5 decent turns and I found the hard surface underneath way too often. While there probably was the claimed 4" new at the top, the visibility was poor, and new snow seemed like it was only 1-2" at bottom. I started with skiing the right side of Alpine Bowl, then went over ridge to Charity. My next run I struggled with poor visibility in Wolverine Bowl, then followed suggestion of guy I rode chair with into Waterfall. He said if you skied in the troughs, the snow was deep. I found it slabby, but it could have been lack of commitment. My third run I went towards the Palisades, but even there and down lower on High Yellow, I was still only finding a couple of good untracked turns. I repeated that run, found a little better snow but got too far out and had to cross a small flowing creek to exit. I did another Wolverine Bowl run, where there was still a lot of low visibility, untracked, but I was still not skiing it well so when I got closer to the bottom I stopped for an attitude adjustment, courtesy of one of my UT friends.
Next run I followed the guy I rode lift with into D6 chute at the top and since he had skied most of it out, I floated over barely covered rocks towards D-7 where I had some untracked. We were almost the first to go towards the Sisters and I had some good steep untracked turns towards Corkscrew, but quickly got rocked out and did not want to follow long sideslip someone had done. I knew where I wanted to enter the Middle Sister gully but it required gingerly stepping through then over some rocks, then floating some while hoping I did not break through to rocks that I knew were barely covered. I was lucky that I did not hit anything and found only one set of tracks in gully and slope below which made trouble getting there worth it, but not something I would repeat. Next run I was able to find clean entrance into Peter's Peril which had been skied out at top, but I found some steep untracked lower down. My next run was Palisade to High Yellow where I found better snow than two previous times by entering the steeps earlier.
I took a break from 12:30-1, going to my very close SUV for a sandwich, beer and chips. After my lunch I did the much shorter walk to slow and flat until the top Hot Wheels chair, the only other chair open. I skied far right into a run signed East Creek and found some good snow, but had to wonder if I was skiing on what was dirt the previous day and was only covered with 4-5" of snow. I returned to Summit and with slightly better visibility found a good untracked line in Wolverine Bowl, but did not want to brave going toward the Sisters or down Waterfall again. Next time up I skied Peril Ridge where some of my turns were made in deep new snow. For my last run, I hiked part of Alpine's High Traverse, not to the closed Backside, but to ski the Saddle which skied well, but was not enough turns to justify doing it again. I quit at 2:30 with over 18.5K. That was the earliest I've quit this year when I did not need to be somewhere.
In retrospect, I should have skipped the hardware store stop and gone to Kirkwood where I would have had much less competition for the new snow. A lot of Alpine got skied out quickly as upper lifts at Squaw did not open due to winds over the top blowing out of the W (actually a little N at 280-285) at 35-40 mph with gusts to 55-60 into early afternoon. Winds also affected Heavenly where they had to close the gondola and Tamarack chair before 10, but unusually were able to run Sky chair to the top of CA. I went to Kirkwood on Tuesday 3/24 and got on Cornice chair at 9 am with Kirkwood resident who also made me sorry I had not gone there Monday as he said there were a couple of hours of powder skiing right down the runs.
I skied a warm-up run on Sentinel which had been lightly groomed and still some room for tracks on the edges. Next time out I hiked towards False Peak and saw a lot of untracked below Cornice, but there was a lot of exposure between rocks and I did not want to launch it and find a rock covered with only the 6" new. So I continued a little further and found a couple of turns then traversed to untracked between what looked like wet slide paths. The snow was heavy and there were a lot of obstacles that are not usually visible in this area.
I got a call from friend who arrived Timber Creek base and wanted to use one of my buddy tickets for his son. I tried to traverse to the left, but it looked way to thin to cross a couple of gullies so I continued to the Drain where many places where creek had made holes in the snow were marked. I went up Cornice again and skied Olympic, then into the trees to the left to meet friend and his son. It was his son's first time skiing in US since he did an exchange program in Japan where he skied twice before and once after getting seriously hurt, hit by a car on campus. I skied with them while they warmed up on TC lift, then we all went up Cornice and skied Sentinel which is a little too steep at the top for intermediates. Kirkwood made the questionable decision to close chair 11 (The Reut) along with chairs 1-4 (access to and the Backside.Sunrise lift) after the weekend. That leaves intermediates with high-speed, but flat TC or slightly steeper, but low-speed and only about 650 vertical Solitude or more difficult, but high-speed Cornice with over 1300 vertical. The Wall also services chair 11 terrain, but entrance is way too much for all but strongest intermediates.
I moved to the Wall and took three runs there. Snow was good at the top, but mostly tracked out and scraped off in some places, then got a little sticky at the bottom. I did find some untracked going far skier's right and also by traversing far to left. Snow was heavier than previous day at Alpine and I don't think it froze very much overnight, but big skis with a lot of rocker made it enjoyable in many places. I took one more lap on Cornice and skied too-soft Zachary under the chair and went in for lunch.
After lunch we took a warm-up run on Solitude, then went up Cornice. I thought my friend's decision to take Zachary was bad as I had skied it before lunch. I recommended Sentinel but his son did not like the entrance. I skied big soft bumps on Janek then ducked through trees back to Zachary about half-way down. I thought my friend was near the top, but was not sure so I skied down and rode lift up. My friend was about 100 feet down the run and was side-stepping back up to his son who was laying on the snow about 20 feet above him and only about 10 feet down the run. (Later his son said he was suffering from vertigo.) After helping him get turned to his other side as he was stuck halfway there and suggesting he hike up 10 feet and go down Sentinel instead or ride the lift the other 1300+ feet down, I could tell they did not want my help so I hiked up and over to Sentinel. I was surprised how scraped off and dirty looking the snow was at the entrance most people were using. If they only went a little farther over it was packed powder and the tree-line at left still had some decent cutup powder.
I went up The Wall and did not see my friend and his son at the top so I did not have to call patrol. It started snowing hard after threatening a couple of times. I skied down Headwaters which had very good snow, then went above top of Reut and skied upper Shotgun and I then got a little untracked further to right. For my 2nd Wall run after lunch, I traversed left and skied Notch Chute, then got out of it before it got too narrow and skied steep ridge on left. I took another Sentinel to Timber Creek and found it was almost raining at the base. I quit about 3 pm with over 22K.
On Wednesday, we went to Heavenly where you had a choice of many intermediate groomers that skied well, but had too many beginners on them. The only more challenging run of any length I skied was Milky Way Bowl where they warned you with sign at top that walking was required and my usual high entry would have required removing. The first time down I had to remove skis for the uphill that you can usually tuck after the bowl. I had to remove skis for about 100 feet. The second time down I removed skis at top to get the higher entrance. On the exit, I traversed high enough to go above top of closed Mott Canyon chair and did not have to remove skis again. The bowl had a couple of inches of new snow that had not been skied out. New snow was over mostly hard surface early on my first run before noon, and skied better on my 2nd run after 2:30.
I also found a little unskied new snow just left of open with obstacle warning Jack's and at top of California Trail where early E wind was moving some in. Before lunch, I skied to bottom of Stagecoach where snow was not as brown as expected, but it was so soft that I did not want to ski it again. I did want to ski too short Upper North Bowl and was able to find a path from near top of Olympic through where East Peak chair was taken out long ago (to Tony Crocker's everlasting dismay) even though run from the top was closed. I had to take off my skis once for less than 50 feet, then again for a couple of feet to get past a rock. I put them back on quickly, even though I could only go another 100 feet or so as I was post-holing, before I had to take them for what was probably 1,000' walk down road to where I could ski to Comet run. Hopefully nobody follows my tracks. I quit skiing and downloaded tram about 3:15 pm with over 24K. The tram operator said this was the first year you could never ski to CA base for the whole season and that Heavenly had run a month more of snow-making than they planned whatever that means.
I thought about driving home this evening, but am not very motivated to pick up and clean cabin, then drive for four hrs. Instead, I will go to some casino Happy Hours, post this and try to ride bike or hike to beach for sunset, then ski Kirkwood for a couple of hours on way home. More pictures will have to wait.
