Timeless Posted December 31, 2009 Report Share Posted December 31, 2009 2 for 1 trip report today, at least with a couple of pictures this time. Tuesday @ Sugarbowl Blue skies and an official snow report of 2-4 inches of fresh light powder at lake level, with maybe 8 inches at the crest made this a beautiful day to be on the mountain. It seemed like more snow than reported, maybe just because it was already on top of a decent base of recent snow. Anyway, for me Sugarbowl was a nice surprise, with lots of decent and varied terrain and what looked like a decent park to top it off. Not being a park person it's hard for me to judge properly but there was lots of it, with decent sized and well maintained jumps. The trees were nicely spaced and with long runs down through them we had a lot of fun and no trouble with the crowds I expected to find there. Which brings me to my first real observations, the place was really busy at the lodges and parking lots, there were lift lines that were quite long but not as bad as say camelback on a normal saturday, but the slopes were deserted, and the few people that were out there were sticking to the groomers despite wide open fields of loose, soft powder. It seesm that there were a whole load of people there that just wanted to "be there", not really in it for the skiing / riding. Wierd to me. So we did lots of runs off of Judah and Jerome lifts before moving over to the middle section on disney mountain and found some more wide open runs with trees and powder, awesome, it just kept coming. A good measure of how good it is with my kids is how often they ask to stop for hot chocolate, and "lunch". We spent the sum total of about 20 minutes at a lodge all day. one other comment on the resort, the approach road from the truckee side is not for the faint hearted on snowy roads, the views are spectacular but it's not something I would want to do in a hurry. It must be easier coming from the bay area off of I-80 or they would never have so many people there. So overall, a great day, lovely conditions, a good resort for all abilities. Definitley recommend this one. Wednesday @ Northstar Oh my God, what a ClusterF' Getting from our house to the slopes took us 2 hours, with what should have been a 20 minute drive. The sheer number of people runing into that resort was horrendous, they made us park on the outlying areas and shuttle bus in, the gondola that you have to take to get on the mountain was queued out the wazoo, just generally a horrible experience when there is a reported "up to a foot" of fress powder on the hill. Note for future, if going there in a holiday period, go early. First run down and it was all worth it, deep soft powder everywhere, manageable lift lines, especially on the backside area which was my personal favorite, steep(ish) mile long blacks with 8-12" of fresh, lots of ncely gladed trees between the runs, really a fantastic experience (especially for your 4th ski day of the year). Conditions stayed pretty good all day, we found a few good runs down off of Pluto as well but we avoided the east ridge area as it seem to be where all the "look at me I'm skiing" families tend to hang out. By 3pm we were all exhausted and the sun had come out so we took a couple of groomer runs down the middle and called it a day. Awesome riding day, maybe one of the best, but the entry experience was not one I want to repeat anytime soon. Cheers all, hope you are all getting some in PA too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toast21602 Posted January 1, 2010 Report Share Posted January 1, 2010 that looks so good. keep it up. damn i can't wait to get out west in a few weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erin808 Posted January 4, 2010 Report Share Posted January 4, 2010 Nice! We were supposed to hit up Kirkwood all weekend but they had a fire on Friday afternoon in their electrical substation. It knocked out power to the entire mountain and village/lodging area. They did not open on Saturday and were supposed to be fully operational yesterday. It was disappointing and we considered going to Heavenly Saturday but the reports were that it was packed with all the other Kirkwood peeps and holiday traffic. So we just had beers in the village and won some $$ on roulette! Paid for our weekend on the casino floor Yesterday at Kirkwood it was a slow start to get the lifts running (they were still having electrical problems) which was a bummer but the weather was amazing and there was good coverage. It had been too warm to call the conditions anything but packed powder. But it was just a fun super laid back day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erin808 Posted January 4, 2010 Report Share Posted January 4, 2010 Lunch. View from our lunch table. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptDave Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 Lunch. View from our lunch table. Pics bring back some good memories. Had a few beers in that spot myself and chair 10 has alot of fun terrain. Sucks about them being closed. They seem to have more then their fair share of power issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Law Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 Thanks for the heads up on Sugarbowl... serious lulz on the Wood, nice hill but the damn generator is on fire every other day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erin808 Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 Yeah I didn't know about the power issues before. They run totally on diesel generators?! This is 2010. I mean my pass was cheap so I am not complaining too loudly. I knew there had to be a reason for the uber discounted passes. 10 did not open on Sunday. Just 2, 5, 6 & 11 But everything was open off of 6. The terrain was ready just not the lifts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Law Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 Yeah I didn't know about the power issues before. They run totally on diesel generators?! This is 2010. I mean my pass was cheap so I am not complaining too loudly. I knew there had to be a reason for the uber discounted passes. They cannot get power from the grid and last I heard they let this particular generator burn to the ground. What sucks is at the Wood this powers everything including cell towers. Lots of nice temporary generators being fired up. Word is though that a dedicated power line is on the way - http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/eldorado/projects/kirkwood/ - lulz 6 will run ungodly slow and 10 will be intermittent at best, good luck on seeing the backside this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phillycore Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 18 more days.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptDave Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 Word is though that a dedicated power line is on the way - http://www.fs.fed.us...jects/kirkwood/ - lulz A few wind turbines wouldnt hurt either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timeless Posted January 6, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2010 18 more days.... What was your planned list of resorts? From the local weather blogs, it looks like you may be timing your trip well, they are having a period of dry sunny weather ("for maybe 10 days") before the next storm cycle sets up, they expect mid to late January to be very stormy with high snow totals. Fingers crossed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phillycore Posted January 7, 2010 Report Share Posted January 7, 2010 January 23-30th... not sure what days we'll be where yet..honestly we'll probably do a lot of it depending on weather... Heavenly 2 days (we are pretty much lodged at the base so this only makes sense...) Kirkwood 1 day (I won 2 free lift tickets to each of the following on a facebook contest to these so half our crew gets to ski free to these...) Squaw 1 day Alpine Meadows 1 day Homewood 1 day (thinking about going here in the middle of our week as it's the smallest, using it basically as a rest or light day as I'm sure we'll all need it, or on the 24th or 30th as those are weekend days and would more than likely have smaller lines than say squaw, or heavenly which we'll aim at going to on weekdays ) I also won 3 nights at the Resort at Squaw Creek I can use if we decide to stay in North Tahoe rather than driving back and forth for a few days...more than likely though I'm hanging onto that voucher for a return trip as it's good until Dec/31/2010 and we already have lodging at the Tahoe Seasons resort using my friends timeshare points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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