Kirkwood, CA 2/23/24

[tseeb]

After making and eating breakfast, showering, packing, cleaning and closing cabin, it was almost 10 before I arrived Kirkwood. I had to wait for a minute or two to make left into, and then longer for someone to leave, before parking in free even on weekend lot before Timber Creek base. Santa Cruz Mountains Deadheads. KPIG is a great and eclectic.

I had my longest line of the day for the chair and a problem with a snowboarder before getting onto it. I was waiting patiently for two skiers to get through gap between young lady putting on skis too close to end of ropeline and blocked with a non-threatening pole a snowboarder who tried to take cuts. He said a few unkind words and gave me a weak push as I moved away to the singles line.

It was my 7th day skiing Kirkwood and Heavenly in Fabulous February and my first that I was not starting on my powder skis. I did 3 laps on Cornice, skiing Sentinel, Olympic and Zacharys. All had great snow, loosely packed powder in the first two with Zacharys more solidly packed. Then I moved to The Wall for 4 laps finding some untracked in the three times I went down different exposures off Norms Nose (center) after skiing excellent snow on the face of The Wall and along ridgeline above (to the right) Eagle Bowl.

I skied barely visible from this angle exit that is between two big rocks left of center.

I found great barely packed powder my first time going into Notch Chute from the top this season. I took off skis and downclimbed about 20’ where this snowboarder is butt-sliding. I’ve done it in much worse conditions in previous years.

All The Way is chute to left. I've found some great steep powder lines to left of it. Notch that is best skied mid-day at right.

I rode chair 2 going towards Backside hoping to catch lunch lull and saw Tbar running so hiked the 100+ steep steps up to it.

Two young girls were ahead of me and probably responsible for a couple of stops both before they loaded and unloaded but always good to see it running which I think Kirkwood considers 110% open. View of terrain to West of T-bar and panorama from top from Round Top to the Sentinels.

I skied off the S side where snow was not totally tracked out but not powder. I enjoyed the lack of line and lightly packed powder for two runs (groomer next to The Wave and ungroomed Hully Gully) on Sunrise. I have never hiked very high into 99 Steps above top of Sunrise lift.

I exited Backside via high and steep sentry into Thunder Saddle where I skied Two Man chute, which is one of the two to the right of center in this photo of Thunder Saddle. Moon Bowl below cornice in center.

I took on lap on groomer to skiers left of Caples Crest. Liftee on two of my rides last name on his name tag was Caples (also the name of lake on way from Kirkwood to Carson Pass). When asked he said his great-grandfather was Dr. Caples who established a way station in the area. Next time up Caples Crest, I hiked to and rode T-bar and skied Shot 5, finding snow sun and wind-affected at top and less so where more protected towards bottom where I found a little untracked. My final time up Caples Crest, I took early exit off Whiskey Slide run to right to avoid large group of people and got to High Whiskey. It was not tracked out, but sun-affected until almost 3/4 of the way down. It was about 230 when I went into 7800 to refill my water bottle and a $3 Goose Island that I had on table outside. Then I skied groomer after long walk to and riding The Reut, did another steep N entry into Norms Nose after riding the Wall before cutting over to groomed Conestoga. I finished my day at 4:05 (my third day in a row skiing after 4 pm) with three laps on Cornice and over 24K. I skied surprisingly groomed almost to top E-facing Monte Wolfe, then barely packed out Sentinel before finishing with some couple of days old, but still OK powder in Palisades. After not that long walk back to car and not needing to stop for gas on way, I was home at 7:45. Hoping I can get to North Tahoe for next trip planned to start on March 2. This was week out OpenSnow prediction for Kirkwood. Carson Spur will be closed with anything close to this. I hope I-80 (Donner Pass) can be open when I need it.

88 years ago from weather page in my local paper.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Those OpenSnow deterministic 6-10 days forecasts need to be taken with a large grain of salt. Averages of model runs get skewed by optimistic outliers. This is an example where they should use medians instead of averages. Joel knows about this problem but it's difficult to resolve on an automated basis, necessary because there are deterministic 10-day projections on Open Snow for hundreds of ski areas around the world. ChrisC has been posting many of these for the Alps periodically. When you read the narrative reports by Bryan for Tahoe you can tell he consistently tones down the outlier forecasts.

 

[tseeb]

Open Snow 6-10 day forecast I posted may hold as this is now for 3-5 days out.

Today's post includes "The last time we saw snowfall totals like this in a 3-day period was back in January of 2021 or possibly back to March of 2020 if we see the higher end, which we couldn't ski thanks to lockdowns. The GFS model shows up to 110 inches near the crest with the driest Canadian model showing as low as 60 inches. Either way, that's a range of 5-9 feet over 3 days. 2.5 - 4+ feet even down to lake level by Sunday. If this forecast holds another 3 days this will be a fun week.

These totals would be more than the average for the entire month of March, which would mean 3 above-average snowfall months after one of the worst starts on record as of the end of December."

 

[Tony Crocker]

We are now within 5 days, when these outlier projections are less of an issue. I recall being very skeptical in Feb. 2023 when similar 7-9 foot projections for SoCal were in the 6-10 day range. Once they got closer and were still that high, the OpenSnow reporter backed them up.