tseeb
Well-known member
Kirkwood reported 7” new on Tuesday. OpenSnow had them at 32” for the 3-day storm and 57” in the first 6 days of Feb. After packing, cleaning and closing cabin, our drive with chain control only on backside of Luther Pass and manned control over Carson Pass was an hour. We parked on road where snowcats cross at Timber Creek (50’ from where we stopped skiing) and hiked up hill to lift at 930. I was on my 10 year old 116-waist Super 7s for the third day in a row.
We skied deep cutup snow on some of Janeks and Zacharys before dropping into steep, cliffy bowl near top of Solitude lift. We next rode The Wall three times, first trying steep and deep open slope I’ve found to skiers right of All The Way chute. Friend was struggling on his 90-something width Mantras while I felt like I was cheating on my Super 7s, pointing them straight down steep untracked and getting easy turns anywhere I wanted. Our next lap on The Wall we joined group waiting for rope drop into Eagle Bowl for about 5 minutes before giving up and skiing good barely cut powder towards, then past top of Reut chair. We could see long line building for chair 2 which gets to Backside chair that had not been open since Saturday. Next time up The Wall we traversed as far and high as we could into the corner of Wagon Wheel Bowl and found some good steep lightly tracked, but missed the top of the wide chutes which would have required trail-breaking hiking. On the way down, I lost my friend. I called him twice without an answer, then loaded Cornice as we’d planned with a patroller and another employee. I’d just asked her if I should be reporting him missing when he called and said he’d fallen and had to hike up to get a dropped pole. I waited for him at top of Sentinel where another patroller told us Backside had finally opened (at almost noon).
We headed there via The Wall and Eagle Bowl. Line on chair 2 had gone down, but was still long (7 min?) as was line on Backside (5 min?), but we seemed to pick the fast side every time. We took two laps on Sunrise (the Backside), first finding OK snow but mostly not as deep as expected on most of ridge to left of Hully Gully, then more of the same past Cold Shoulder although steep gully had some deep spots. We cut over to Sunnyside for a moderate angle barely touched 30 turns. I'd like to claim these tracks for my friend and I, but it was patrol who had hiked up and ski-cut temporarily closed to the public 99 Steps where at one time Kirkwood had planned to add a chair.
View of 99 Steps from further back closer to Sunrise chair at 140. Patrol tracks in background.
I was trying to catch the light in the middle of Caples Lake which almost looked like a waterspout, but was just a sunbeam getting through. Returning to frontside, we had a great steep powder run dropping off ridge past Thunder Saddle and still too thin Moon Bowl where line of hikers are to right center (and red arrow). Very ambitious people were also hiking the not running yet this year T-bar to Lookout Vista.
My friend on the great steep powder run. He struggled a bit (not here!) on 90-something waist Mantras.
About 2 PM it started snowing heavily. This is taken on The Reut chair at 140. We also rode chair 2 and skied an untracked mid-Whiskey run on our return from Backside.
My watch counted 17 lifts and 20.3K. Drive home was 4 hours with detour to check path (non-existent) to friend's Kirkwood place and to drop him where he’d left his Subaru on his friend's street in far S Tracy. This is a through the windshield shot of the Carson Spur on our way home at 3:45. It was our nemesis on the way to Kirkwood early on Sunday as we got through it between the 2nd and 3rd (and final of the day) avalanche closure, only after re-routing and driving an extra 45 miles to Sacramento during first closure.

We skied deep cutup snow on some of Janeks and Zacharys before dropping into steep, cliffy bowl near top of Solitude lift. We next rode The Wall three times, first trying steep and deep open slope I’ve found to skiers right of All The Way chute. Friend was struggling on his 90-something width Mantras while I felt like I was cheating on my Super 7s, pointing them straight down steep untracked and getting easy turns anywhere I wanted. Our next lap on The Wall we joined group waiting for rope drop into Eagle Bowl for about 5 minutes before giving up and skiing good barely cut powder towards, then past top of Reut chair. We could see long line building for chair 2 which gets to Backside chair that had not been open since Saturday. Next time up The Wall we traversed as far and high as we could into the corner of Wagon Wheel Bowl and found some good steep lightly tracked, but missed the top of the wide chutes which would have required trail-breaking hiking. On the way down, I lost my friend. I called him twice without an answer, then loaded Cornice as we’d planned with a patroller and another employee. I’d just asked her if I should be reporting him missing when he called and said he’d fallen and had to hike up to get a dropped pole. I waited for him at top of Sentinel where another patroller told us Backside had finally opened (at almost noon).
We headed there via The Wall and Eagle Bowl. Line on chair 2 had gone down, but was still long (7 min?) as was line on Backside (5 min?), but we seemed to pick the fast side every time. We took two laps on Sunrise (the Backside), first finding OK snow but mostly not as deep as expected on most of ridge to left of Hully Gully, then more of the same past Cold Shoulder although steep gully had some deep spots. We cut over to Sunnyside for a moderate angle barely touched 30 turns. I'd like to claim these tracks for my friend and I, but it was patrol who had hiked up and ski-cut temporarily closed to the public 99 Steps where at one time Kirkwood had planned to add a chair.
View of 99 Steps from further back closer to Sunrise chair at 140. Patrol tracks in background.
I was trying to catch the light in the middle of Caples Lake which almost looked like a waterspout, but was just a sunbeam getting through. Returning to frontside, we had a great steep powder run dropping off ridge past Thunder Saddle and still too thin Moon Bowl where line of hikers are to right center (and red arrow). Very ambitious people were also hiking the not running yet this year T-bar to Lookout Vista.
About 2 PM it started snowing heavily. This is taken on The Reut chair at 140. We also rode chair 2 and skied an untracked mid-Whiskey run on our return from Backside.
My watch counted 17 lifts and 20.3K. Drive home was 4 hours with detour to check path (non-existent) to friend's Kirkwood place and to drop him where he’d left his Subaru on his friend's street in far S Tracy. This is a through the windshield shot of the Carson Spur on our way home at 3:45. It was our nemesis on the way to Kirkwood early on Sunday as we got through it between the 2nd and 3rd (and final of the day) avalanche closure, only after re-routing and driving an extra 45 miles to Sacramento during first closure.