Kirkwood, CA 3/30/19

tseeb

Well-known member
Kirkwood was somewhat anticlimactic after two powder days at Heavenly, but was still a great (although I made it a short) day.

I closed up cabin and left South Tahoe at 7:30 and arrived 45 min. later (45 min. before opening) and caught first chair at Timber Creek. Kirkwood did a lot of grooming including the entire length of Lookout Janek and Olympic, a path lookers left from the top of the Wall,
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a connection to and a couple of lanes wide down Eagle Bowl and all the way to the top of Larry's Lip on the Backside
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(although almost everyone who made the effort to get there skied powder on 99 Steps). Lift operator, who is friend’s son that I rode Backside lift with, said he heard it has been 10 years since top of Larry's Lip was groomed. This is on top of the usual high-angle grooming that includes Zachary's and Sentinel. It was my first time at Kirkwood since late January.

While sunny, it seemed colder than previous days as East wind was blowing which meant it warmed much slower than Heavenly had the previous two days. I started out with some steep groomers on Cornice, then moved to the Wall via False Peak Chute where I found a few powder turns. The windsift on skiers right of groomer from top of Wall was great. I then did a few Sunrise laps before returning to the Wall via very filled-in Hells Delight,
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then a chute between Two Man's and Thunder Saddle - also unusually filled in. I took a couple of laps on the Wall,
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including one at beer (or 11) thirty, skiing both an easy (although you had to pass or throw skis down about a 6' drop) entrance and a hard entrance to Notch Chute. The hard entrance is below skier on left.
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I think that is Once Is Enough on the right. Snow below the Notch was very good with both All The Way and Notch Chute very filled in. After a couple of more laps on Cornice, including finishing with an early and big entrance to Jim's I skied to within 100' on my car, quit with just over 20K, was on road at 1 and home at 4:30.
 
 
We had that beer in the Iron Blosam pool. It sucked, but I drank it anyway to keep the souvenir.
 
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