However, when another similarly sized storm arrived the following week, it was hard to miss, especially as such big storms don't happen even once on some years.

We went with Martin and Matt in their chalet in South Lake. The drive on 50 on thursday evening was a bit gruesome because we left just a little bit too late and were delayed by an accident that happened 10mn ahead of us. In the end, we only got there past 01:00 instead of just after 23:00 :-

they need to clean that van :)

Martin's Subaru

Mmmh, the plow guy came that afternoon, but by the evening the driveway was unsuable already.

What can I say, it was a pretty good day, even with just one top lift open :)
This was a really sweet 'just my tracks' run in palisades:

and here is a mashup of other bits from the day:

The next morning, Caltrans had opened Carson Pass at 05:00 but failed to update their record, so it was marked closed until 08:30 :( That's a major fail from Caltrans and almost caused us to go to Heavenly (which sucked that day since everything was closed there).

In the end, we got to Kirkwood a bit past 10:00 and ended up riding Cornice all day, which was more than enough for that day :)

A quick summary of day 2:

The next morning, we went for Kirkwood earlier, but a couple of cars spun out on Carson Pass, closing it for another 90mn. Had we left 10mn earlier, we'd have made it... We were on the slopes around 10:30, which was just around the time that the Wall opened, so I was able to get a couple of rides off it, and they were pretty stellar :)

waiting in line again...

yes, it was snowing still...

a little bit of ice hanging :)

kirkwood staff was shoveling the snow at the top of the wall so that we didn't get stuck

Saturday was a really good day, except for the fact that wind closed the wall, so I only got to ride on it twice. This enticed me to stay sunday to actually ride the mountain that was still closed.

Jennifer went home saturday night because she had commitments on sunday (also she unfortunately hurt her knee by falling off the lift downloading on ice at the top of cornice). I spent the night with Jim and Matt who nicely hosted me at their condo in kirkwood.
Sunday morning, Arturo and Bill who had been stuck at Heavenly the previous day, were able to make it to kirkwood, so we met up.

a couple of skiers climbed on the roof and jumped out. Sweet!

5ft+ of snow wasn't for play, they really had it.

when the wall finally opened, there was a little bit of a line :)

come on Arturo, don't be scared, it's just a cornice ;)

the ride home on sunday turned out to be uneventful

A quick summary of day 3 with Arturo and Bill:

Thanks to Martin, Matt, Matt, and Jim for driving/hosting us.