Kirkwood is a huge and beautiful area with something for everybody. It is also known for burliness and has the steep and scary in abundance. I skied on Sunday with my daughter and family who have been polished to diamond hardness by 15 years of living in VT and skiing Mad River. I won't give away a lady's age but I am 72 and my daughter is my oldest. She is now jumping cliffs and cornices, with 20 foot drops, if nothing else to keep up with her boys, who are 16, 13 and 10. The advantage of that kind of skill is that you can still get good soft snow, many days, in this case 2.5 weeks, after a storm. We found some in the trees below "The Wave". Then my son in law took me exploring; a long traverse, some climbing, and more traversing out a ridge. I think he had not been there before. It looked like we were cliffed out, but going a little further we came to some jaw dropping chutes. It looked like you could spit and it would hit the bottom. Afterward a check of the map showed that they had no names, just letters. We did either D or E. Once before at Lake Louise I experienced this. When they have letters and not names it is time to tighten your sphincter. This time my head was right and the company was right so we did it. It was north facing and a natural half pipe, 20-30 feet wide and deeply shaded on the left side. The right side was in the sun, and one turn there revealed breakable crust. The shaded side was powder, albeit old stale powder. So, our skiable line was shrunk to half the width of the chute. It was best to turn on the wall. Our sluff from each turn descended faster than we did. It is an indescribable thrill both to ski something like that and to look up from the bottom in amazement. Time slows down, all the senses are sharpened, and you remember every detail.
great, whatever. where is the gopro edit ? the hiphop soundtrack ? the bro-chismo ? you can't call it skiing without that.
I resumed skiing several years ago for my kids, but I can only dream it would turn out so good.
San Francisco is my absolute favorite city to visit in the US, and a season pass to Kirkwood is just icing on the cake. Denis, I would be happy to offer you a couple of rounds in the Kirkwood inn, should the unlikely occaision ever happen. I don't think I could hang with you on the mountain!
Thanks pagemony. I'd love to have your company and assure you that you could keep up. I need frequent stops and rests and can't keep up with my 10 yr old grandson who never stops. The last time I did anything like the story above was 10 yrs. ago, the Great Gulf at Mt. Washington. That stuff scares me.
Denis, I have six days at Kirkwood and still don't have a handle on the place, but it sounds like you are talking about that steep area to the skiers left as you head downhill from top of the chair that takes you up to the Wave on the backside of the layout. A guy I met out there took me down a less hairy black diamond slope between there and the vista surf lift to return to the frontside of the mtn. I did not go where you are talking about. It is on the edge of that giant extreme area they call The Cirque. If I'm not mistaken Denis is talking about somewhere on the left half of this photo: http://unofficialnetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Avelanche-Control-on-the-Cirque-Kirkwood.jpg
Had a season pass at Kirkwood back in the early 80's. The chutes you mention start at the top of what is called Lookout Vista. These were fun to ski but you would need to take 2 lifts just to get back to that area so most of the time it was one run and done. It's a big reason the snow holds up there. Much of the skiing done back in those days was the territory off to the left or right of Sentinel Bowl. There wasn't a lift in those days to take you to Wagon Wheel Bowl. Some nice tree skiing in between the bowls. It was the end of the season when a friend and myself hiked a few hundred yards above Lookout Vista clearly not paying any attention to the out of bounds signs and traversed into the closed area known as The Cirque. This was along where the top shadowed line meets the sun from the .jpg picture. We ended up just about in the middle of the picture then came down some very steep untracked powder through a rock lined chute down into a flat basin. Needless to say we were observed doing this and our passes were taken away. Back in those days we did get them back but if we had a slip up in this area it may have been our last.
Jim,
that's it. Looks short and mild in that pic but it sure didn't from the top.
Snow! Yesterday I skied only the lower parts of Kirkwood and found plenty of untracked powder mostly in the trees. It was beautiful. The backside was not open when I got tired and left about 1 PM. They stopped bombing about then, so maybe the backside opened later. When I drove back here to S lake T the wind was really blowing and moving a lot of snow. The second storm is getting underway now and I will go to sierra which has better wind shelter and is easier to get to. I think Sunday will be the best day. Kirkwood may have trouble getting things open on sat. Caltrans has declared chain restrictions for all but 4wd or AWD with snow tires. There may be lightning,in which case I will not ski today.
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/10385251-113/avalanche-kirkwood-resort-according
I was nowhere near there yesterday. I stayed low, primarily because good untracked powder was to be had there. Why go ranging farther afield? That's for later when the new snow has settled and the easily reached stuff is tracked out. Avoiding avi danger is a pretty good reason as well. I have seen but not skied that area and would not have picked it as particularly threatening.
Denis wrote:
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/10385251-113/avalanche-kirkwood-resort-according
I was nowhere near there yesterday. I stayed low, primarily because good untracked powder was to be had there. Why go ranging farther afield? That's for later when the new snow has settled and the easily reached stuff is tracked out. Avoiding avi danger is a pretty good reason as well. I have seen but not skied that area and would not have picked it as particularly threatening.
Picture I took last year at Kirkwood. Eagle Bowl is open, sunny area on right edge of this photo. I skied it and it was good and a low traffic area. Center of photo is the huge extreme area known as The Cirque, not normally open to the public, just occasional freeride/steeps competitions.
