Marc's Public Blog - Skiing / Snowboarding / Snow

One more nice storm before the likely end of season for me (due to trips in April)? Yes please!
With more than 30 inches in the forecast, drove up wednesday before the storm arrived, and rode a couple of hours to confirm that there was plenty of snow but it was kinda icy, like I expected it would be.

Got to see ski patrol load up a lot of bombs and heard lots of them the next few days early in the morning :)

After that, I just ended the day and waited for the good snow ot fall.

Thursday, a solid 9 inches, although it was pretty firm and only felt like 2 or so. It was a bluebird, so I used the day to charge my car:

nice but not very deep

Firt run on chamoix was nice, but you can see it's not super deep:

I never get tired of this view :)

I went to check out the cave skiiers left of the wall ridge, it's very filled:

I went to the backside to check it out when it opened:

usual line at chair2

the wave looked super nice

nice fast run since it was pretty firm:

As usual Fawn Ridge was the best snow on the mountain:

a bit of work get out, though :)

Friday, day 3 for me, was a ok-ish day, the new snow didn't fall until late in the day and it got a lot better then. Got to do a few runs with Maze before the storm hit hard:

Saturday, day 4 was the best day, the best for last for sure. A solid and soft 12 inches, and half bluebird:

not crowded for a saturday

First run was really good:

very very good snow

happy :)

The top of the wall ridge was hard, so I lost my edge, but once in the forest, plenty of good snow left:

Met Eric who did a much deeper Fawn Ridge run than me :)

Then it was time to head out to the back side, usual little line on 2:

fawn ridge was excellent

oops, I had to walk out on that run :)

I'll leave you with the last Fawn Ridge run, which was excellent:

Drive across the spur, was interesting:

Days 1-2: Shut down

The kids tried to dig out the front door:

day2

they failed, this is what it looked on day 3 :)

The snow was relentless, it never stopped:

KW tried, but didn't succeed in opening anything on day2

I parked my car in underground parking so it wouldn't get snowed in :)

parking your car outside didn't seem like a great idea :)

this was the parking lot I got in, you could barely walk out without hitting your head

Day 3: Cartmanland Fluffy 4H Pow Day

weather was blizzardly

nice board :)

I was able to snowboard all the way from the lift to across the street and inside the parking lot ;)

I also noticed that it was cold enough my car lost 8% charge

Despite the bad weather, these were some of the best runs I've ever had at kirkwood, especially as no one was able to drive in since the roads were closed:

Chamoix was trivial to get down, so much snow:

Day 4: Finally better weather, Wall opened

the wall finally opened!

everyone flocked there :)

the path down from the top was all gone and burried

chair 2 needed a bit of TLC :)

I started the day with a fast run down 6, snow was firm powder but still smooth:

A different, down angle run:

The wall, eagle bowl to chair 1:

Day 5: Late bluebird, Backside finally opened

the wall seldom looks like this :)

people camped at chair2 2H early to get to the backside :)

I used the time to hike to Glove Rock mostly for fun, the snow was not that great anymore by then:

nice views though

riding the ridge was super windy, I then rode part of palisades

snow was pretty packed by then though

The ride was pretty rough, I got blown off the icy ridge a few times:

Then went back to the Wall and eagle bowl to get to chair2

rode down this, pretty rough on my butt :)

chair2 line had gotten a bit longer :)

it looked pretty, but backside snow is usually pretty packed

haha, good one :)

I went to find better snow

the cornice off the wave had been blown off by the wind, it was now a gentle slope. Had never seen that.

Fawn ridge was beautiful, as always

The first run was pretty firm:

This was my last, and best fawn ridge run, snow was much better there as usual. Good thing I had poles to get out of it, especially with the snowboarders that were blocking the path out:

After multiple fawn ridge runs, it was time to drive back, just as Carson Spur had finally re-opened:

got through the Spur just as the snow as starting to stick

I did a quick charging stop at jackson since I wasn't sure when I'd charge at KW, but in hindsight I could have driven there direct and arrived with 15% left (day drive, no headlights, no heat, warmer temps). Nice to see my car can still make it there in one shot when the conditions are good:

found this as jackson supercharger

Day 1: Sunday, a few inches

not very deep, but still nice

went pow hunting

finally could ride to the rock under the wall

Day 2: Monday, 18 inches

not that deep like I said

not that busy for a deep pow day

the chutes were still a bit shallow

astill a sheet of ice

Despite the slighly hard powder, it was still a very nice day.

Firat run:

Day 3: Tuesday, 10 inches of fluffy pow

not too many people

Chair 4 finally opened, it was worth checking out :)

the wave was pristine

I did have to hike back up to find a pole I dropped, took 25mn because of deep the snow was

Awesome snow:

Fawn ridge was stellar:

Day 4: Tuesday, 4 inches for the last day

not much of a line

my watch told me I snowboarded too much :)

haha, one more day before I can rest :)

went to check out a wall chute

Still good runs:

By the way, this is why I why I get underground parking, getting this car out will be an hour of work with a shovel...

All in all this was a good trip, with plenty of enjoyable snow and kirkwood staff did an awesome job opening terrain timely, as well as communicating what they were doing. Thanks Ricky Newberry, the new GM, for running a great ship.

snow line was low, but that's good for the snow quality (cold)

got to KW in just over 3h40 with chain control speed restrictions, not bad (arrived with 31%)

glad to be back :)

Day 1 was cold and windy, became whiteout conditions before long:

coverage in Chamoix was still a bit rough at the bottom, but easy to go back on my butt

still a bit low in coverage on some ridges, but ok elsewhere

bottom of the drain still had holes to the river underneath, but they were being covered slowly

the wall still needed a bit more snow in places

it was still easy to get cliffed out i places

fair mount of snow falling the 2nd half the of day

KW crew did a great job keeping 6 and 10 open 'till end of day.

Thanks to Jeremy for getting me lodging for one night

Day #2 was the bluebird. We didn't get the 1.5ft in the forecast, only 7", but it was just the right kind that it felt bottomless and enjoyable while helping improve the base.

crews hard at work, and it sounded like this guy was actually electric, not diesel. Is that possible?

6 opened right on schedule, no delays

lovely snow

Couldn't see the base or anything the previous day. Much nicer on day #2:

I feel like I jumped this because I was too lazy to hike back up and the snow was soft enough, but it looks high. Still, I took a picture afterwards and have no other such picture, so it may actually be this one:

The Wall opened around 11:00 after snow safety was done, and the backside at 11:45 exactly as scheduled (big thumbs up on the twitter updates):

lovely to see the backside coverage, not bad

I didn't stay in line for 30mn to get first chair on 4

but I went to the wave, one of the first people down

looked like a good place to check out

got all this snow to myself, woot!

not every day I get a shot like this :)

I finished the day, getting good snow and lines all day, and left after 2 full days, very content. Great job to the KW crews for keeping things running in the middle of the week, even if few people were there:

Got up at 4:40, in hindsigh shoudl have been 20mn earlier to get first liftat 09:00 (including a 10-15mn charging stop on the way up), but close enough :)

Saw Sierra on the way up but it was already closed

the base of SLT looked somewhat snow free

Heavenly CA parking lot was fairly full for a wednesday

let's get to work :)

fairly good powder at the top of sky

found Ovidiu on the way

did I saw powder, in May?

Yes!

we rode to Killbrew gates (all closed)

Nevada side only had Dipper running but that was good enough

plenty of snow still, signs are still buried

Had a bit of a view from time to time:

so much snow to be enjoyed

Arturo and I went to check out the beach, which I seldom get to see :)

Day #2, we went back to Heavenly but it was a bit icy in the morning, until more snow came, and the resort got closed for lightening:

vis went downhill quickly

there was still decent snow

I took roundabout to the bottom:

the bottom forest snow was warmer

it did start snowing hard

Day #3, we went to Kirkwood when it just re-opened that day (friday). Thankfully the recent snow didn't melt and freeze, so the conditions were awesome:

one thing that sucks about kirkwood is that they are now down to one charger left (from 10)

woot!

the lines

top of chair 7

Sunday: Kirkwood

roads were already nice and white on the way up

Carson Spur was quite loaded

Impressive wall of snow

thankful to have underground parking for the duration of my trip

another impressive wall of snow

glad to be back on the lift

I arrived by noon on sunday, new snow was starting to cover the frozen crust underneath:

lots of snow, the top of cornice had some almost invisible real cornices like that, I fell down from that one

met Johannes for a few runs

school run was a rounding error

it was still a bit too warm and wet

by the end of the day, things looked good though :)

When I got to my condo, I was reminded that it had snowed a bit recenty:

Monday: Kirkwood

Kirkwood has a real problem with electric charging, this is the only charger left on the entire property

nice powder

notice the huge pile of storage snow by the parking lots

got one of the first few chairs up the wall. Wee!

interestingly, the top of the chutes by the wall were bare due to wind blowing the snow away

this is the one time I had to unbind that day :)

Palisades was good too

Another picture of the storage snow pile in the parking lot

Cornice run, a bit rough at the top, but opened up to be good lower down:

Straight down run from the wall, a bit firm at the top too, but good after that:

Wall tree run:

The backside just opened, so I went to check it out:

pretty big cornice by the wave

it was a bit of a jump into snow that wasn't exactly a pillow underneath :)

I got down, but it was a bit scary :)

snow as wind packed at the top, deeper lower down

Tuesday: Kirkwood

the wall had so much snow that they gated you to come down before the chairs, the regular ramp that went under, didn't fit anymore

weather and visibility improved during the day, so much snow

I literally managed to snowboard all the way back to the building parking lot across the street :)

Great pow ride off the wall:

More pow during the day, free refills:

Even face shots (1:16):

Wednesday: Heavenyly Side Country

Gondola line

got to the gate for the first run

We went back for 6 firebreak runs total:

After 6 runs, we had enough time to go back the Gondola one more time, up sky, and towards the backside:

The backside snow wasn't perfect, but it was still a good run down, especialy at the top:

Eventually got down the good parts and took a rest :)

before doing the rest of the run down, where snow became more scarce (it's melting quickly at lower altitude):

eventually we got to below the snow line and had to walk a bit

then there was a bit of snow left to finish up

and we got to the road

way too much to drive back

thankfully we got luck with hitch hiking

25mn later, back at the gondola base, end of a great day

Thanks much to Ovidiu and Rik for joining me and the 7 powder runs

seems that my car is still barely able to make it to kirkwood without charging despite the 10% loss since I bought it

I did charge in jackson and picked up another 30% to have a good margin

Carson Spur looked nice

The next morning, we didn't get the 18" we were hoping for, but still got a good 8" which wasn't bad (plus 9" during the day)

lines weren't terrible for a sunday

Chair 6 opened 30mn behind, not too bad

nice storm nonetheless

The wall opened just before 11:00, which was nice

Lots of pow

The next night didn't have more snow, but was able to catch up with TODOs

Kirkwood really sucks now, only a single charger left with 2 ports (used to be 10)

Monday was a bluebird:

Went in line for chair 2 and backside for when it was going to open at 11:00

first time doing the backside this season

fawn ridge delivered as always

Vista was unfortunately closed

After 2 good days, it was a reasonably easy drive home, although 88 was icy for quite a while and there were multiple accidents:

got home by using 56%, not bad

even early on a friday morning, chain control caused a 45mn traffic jam :(

well done guys for blocking traffic so much

snowplow escort that wasn't really necessary

I stayed on the Califonia side and managed to find parking close to the gondola to meet Ovidiu and Rick after confirming the Gondola had just opened (they parked on the nevada side which I generally avoid going to :) ):

several lifts no running yet, so the lines were long

back for more

nice views

Fire Break Runs:

For Day #2, I went to kirkwood, by then I had of course missed the fresh tracks from Day #1, but given the firebreak runs, that was not a big deal. Driving there was not a huge deal, but there was already a good line getting in the parking lot when I arrived:

my car has become a lot more chatty :)

lots of cars trying to get in

Despite the parking getting full quickly, the resort didn't feel too full. Snow coverage was excellent. Chamoix was not even a problem, anyone could go without even trying hard:

snow was still good and a few stashes here and there

given the few lifts running, we had mild lines

running the wall for the first time this season

the wall ridge opened and I was able to drop it the first time this season too

liftie humor :)

very windy on top

sunny at times

But with 60mph+ winds, being on the top of the mountain was painful. Once I went up cornice and wanted to ride the ridge to drop skier's right, but the wind was so strong and I was being pelleted by ice/snow in the face, so I aborted:

that's snow/ice being blown around

by dropping the wall, I was able to get to the snow cave, sheltered from the wind

lenticular cloud, showing the strong winds

After some good runs, I went home. Glad to get such good snow in January!

Drove up early on a friday morning and the snow line was quite low but thankfully the road was clear until higher altitudes, so the drive was pretty quick, except for requiring a 10mn charging stop for safety (temps + headlights + snow rolling resistance made it unsafe to drive in one shot without stopping):

Carson Spur looked good

Big downside was that kirkwood only has 2 chargers left

It was early season, but when going in the right places. Friday was a bluebird with 19"

Chamoix was still very new

Drain was still low too

Day 2 had more freshies:

Palisades was kind of closed

but looked very nice :)

Later in the day, I found Johannes:

terrain towards the wall never opened all 4 days, neither did the wall

Despite the great snow, coverage was still limited, and I ended up getting a core shot somewhere during that day:

thankfully I had Ptext to fix it :)

Dau3, Sunday, got more fresh snow, kirkwood only opened 6 around 9:30, but I guess it wasn't too late:

a bit of a wait

got cold to wait like this

people were eager :)

when I finally got up, it was very good :)

Day4, Monday, we ended up only getting 1" overnight and 5" in 24h (mostly the previous day), but things were still great. Unfortunately not a lot of terrain opened and the Wall never opened.

the guys who waited 2H for first chair didn't get a lot

coverage wasn't perfect everywhere, but still very good for early december

Around 14:00, I had had enough fun and given the limited terrain opened, I called it a day and drove home, tired and happy :)

Snow coverage was excellent for that time of the year, although the snow was obviously variable and you had to follow the sun or the snow was icy or too wet. Still, for that time of the year, it was better than average for sure.

great to meet ovidiu, it had been a while

and then there is this troublemaker

chamoix was still in very good shape, snow all the way down

palisades was still in great shape

People also had nice costumes:

Group pictures:

some music before the drive home :)

Despite leaving at 13:00, the drive got delayed by 30mn due to traffic (damn, things clog up early now). That caused my tesla to save battery use (slower speed) and I had an estimate of 21% left of arrival before the last climb. This got down to 9% when I arrived, as my drive up took more than planned, as usual (despite virtually no snow on the road). Snow line was a bit over 6000ft, carson spur was not too covered anymore, so no worries about it closing:

coverage left was decent

The snow was a bit wet (high snoe line) and didn't stay much on the road/base, but the next morning, we had some. Unfortunately lifts opened 1h late due to lack of staff to do snow safety. Once opened, the snow was pretty good:

unfortunately lifts opened 1h late, lik

finally got to go up

Chamoix was in really good shape

The wall still had a good amount of snow left

Even Palisades was still open

Day #2 had more snow, although it came late a night and continued throughout the day, it was pretty wet. Good amounts of snow, but the conditions were tough and most people got pretty wet. Snow was pretty wet and heavy and took a lot of effort to ride. Still, not complaining, it was fun :)

as a result, few people running the lifts, even on a sunday.

I arrived with 18% left and kirkwood sadly got rid of their 10 chargers, replacing them with only 4, now using chargepoint (some tesla chargers had up to 10A, or 8A, and those are only 6A), which now charge money, but that's fine.

Kirkwood was nice and sunny, but everything non groomed was kind of unpleasant, so groomers it was:

I tried to time the storm systems and drove to kirkwood in between 2 storms, when Carson Spur was open. It was too cold and I had to drive at night, so the temperature and headlights made it so that I would have arrived at kirkwood with -4% battery from my after the fact estimate, but thanks to the new supercharger in Jackon, a 5mn detour and 10mn bathroom stop gave me more than enough battery to arrive there comfortably. Drive up took just over 3h45 with the charging stop and the snow:

the bad news is that most of the chargers are broken, and the 2 left are sharing the same power (only 20A each)

It was early season, KW had only been open for 3 days, so they were still getting things ready and cleaning up :)

coverage was amazing

Normally, 6 would have opened on tuesday, but didn't like I predicted, and opened late (11:30) on wednesday. It was a longer wait than planned, but better than nothing:

we all waited eagerly :)

and finally got up

plenty of snow

coverage on chamoix was amazing

Day #2 got an extra 17", which caused Cornice to open a bit late (9:50), but not terribly:

ski patrol was training

chamoix started being scraped a bit :)

this is why the run is called hole in the wall :)

plenty of freshies

Palisades opened

we were all eying the wall and hoping it would open the next day

Day #3 started being a bit repetitive running 6 all day, but we held hope for the wall opening:

beautiful conditions

by 13:00 people started lining up for the wall

so I went to join them and waited about 45mn

and at 14:00 it opened, wee!

people who waited 1h30+ got first tracks, but there were plenty for everyone

After lapping the wall until they closed it, I was definitely spent, and with a huge grin on my face :)

Before people cry murder about how bad it is for the environment, it's all indoors and temperature is controlled beter than ski resorts that spent untold amounts of energy to make a lot of snow that melts away on very big slopes. I don't have numbers, but my feeling is that it's actually not that bad in comparison, and it's cool for people there to be able to enjoy the snow when there is clearly none nearby.

This is what it looks like:

Like other places in Dubai, navigation was a bit tricky, I missed one exit and had to find far away street parking and jump some hedges to get in the mall eventually (or it would have been a 15mn drive to get all the way out and back in to the correct entrance). Got there eventually. I got in kind of late on a weekday, so I was lucky not to have any wait and got my gear right away. The guy was surprised when I asked a board of 164 and stance of 15R 30F. That was a bit aggressive and powder-day like, which is almost all I do :)

really cool to see a groomer indoors

the quad chair was not detachable and a bit slow, but note the nice leather seats

After a while I figured out that the tow rope was faster than the quad chair:

The run is of course not super long, but they have a mini terrain park at the top, and it was fun enough for almost 2H. Here's a vid:

I wasn't happy with Vail closing early (again the earliest in the history of kirkwood, not counting covid last year), but in the end, there was not a lot of snow, so it's probably not a huge loss.
I went with Deana who had been meaning to go to Tahoe, and this made the trip more fun for sure, especially on easter sunday where she definitely wanted to be in the running for bunny spirit :)

Carson Spur was honestly not showing a lot of snow, and despite the higher temps, the early morning was on the icy side outside of groomers, so it was a chasing the right snow, day:

Deana got some rentals:

getting ready for the day :)

it was easter, bunny ears

She then went mostly on chair 1 and 2:

A few pictures from higher up:

a few people still went hiking up, but the snow wasn't worth it for me

not very busy

Then, we did something I haven't done in many years: lunch :)

I went on the backside to check it out, it had started to melt, but still had snow:

the wall drop never got a lot of snow, and started getting questionable to ride again

And that was it for the weird 2020-2021 season. Not the best, but better than nothing.

lots of people, lines for getting food

the wall was pretty tracked out, but not that much snow at the top

The forecast for overnight snow went down to 6", but thankfully Kirkwood got 1ft, nice!

eagle bowl, not open yet

got more snow refills during the day

I went to the back side when it opened:

fawn ridge delivered

the line wasn't bad

I definitely got some good rides that day:

a later ride on fawn ridge:

Day #3 was a bluebird with pleny of pow left:

saw a heli land at martin point, not quite sure why

As a first (for me), I used half the day to hike two peaks, starting with Thimble Peak:

the other side was nice, but a bit bare

After Thimble peak from chair 4, I went to hike Glove Rock over palisades. As I expected, by the time I got there (15:40), the temperatures went down and the top crusted, making the ride down a lot less satisfying:

you have to hike far to see those signs

nice view of the back

it was spooky to ride on the other side of the ridge, away from the resort

I then rode the ridge some more

and afer another warning, it was time to ride back down

I wasn't the first person to do this :)

And that was it for day #3, very nice conditions, and snow that was good until 2/3rd of the 3rd day.

This was our last stop on Arturo's ski road trip

Day #1 was great, awesome pow for the location, we spent most of our time at Strawberry Bowl:

lots of lines to be had

The runs were wonderful:

Day #2 was still good, less pow, but still plenty of good snow:

we took the tram to John Paul Ridge

great view

lots of pow, still

After 4 days in Utah on Arturo's ski road trip, our next stop was Crested Butte in Colorado.

Crested Butte is not a mountain for beginners, and a bit on the bony side, but very interesting terrain. We got to meet Karl and Suwei:

great views

good pow on the sides, but you had to pay the price of getting back

the tow ropes were there to weed snowboarders :)

before the ride down

then the hike back up

Wanna smoke some rocks, dude

we went for banana to find some powder

Then another hike to another run: spellbound (hike was not that fun):

arturo didn't even make it to the beginning of the descent :)

it was a fun run down, with another hike to get out at the bottom

After a 2 day drive, this was our first stop on Arturo's ski road trip

We were in a yotelpad, small, but close to the lift:

nice cell phone tree

So much powder:

The trees were good:

Day #2: was lots of snow:

the next day, there was a bit of a line to get up, 45mn+

but pow!

did I mention snow?

The trees in the morning were lovely:

So much pow:

I went back to the trees and found lots of things hiding under the snow and got my snow pants ripped out :)

The powder in the other trees, was ridiculously good:

Day #3 was a bluebird:

even more lines

Day #4, we went to Park City:

still pow

stupid guy that kept photobombing my pictures

After a while, I got tired and took the traverse gondola back to Canyons:

big valley between

mid station where you could ski back down to either mountain

back to Canyons

a few crossing lifts

nice views

We got lucky and got an unusal early cold storm in January, which covered all the rocks and ice. I drove there on a tuesday afternoon before the storm hit, parked the car underground and waited for the storm and the lifts to open.

I made it in one shot (no recharging) and 11% left when I arrived. That was by far a best condition scenario: no headlights, no heat, no windshield wipers, and no snow to add rolling resistance. I know that it's not safe to attempt this in one shot if all the stars don't align, but on the plus side, there is now a supercharger in jackson (only 5mn detour), so it's much easier to charge if needed. That said, I only had to charge when I arrived at kirkwood.

Day #1, wednesday. Big dump, lots of wind, kirkwood only managed to open 6 (the only lift to the top) by 15:28 and promptly closed it at 16:00. Disappointing to say the least. The old kirkwood would have stayed open past 16:00 as a gesture of good faith. The new kirkwood, closed after 32mn:

Day #2, thursday. Another big dump. Thursday, they opened at 13:00 again (new dump). The "you had one job" twitter guy failed to tell anyone that anything opened. I just noticed it on the webcam and ran outside screaming "WTF?"
They closed at 15:00 sharp, because the road was closing at 15:30. They knew they were punishing every single person who paid you and KW to stay on site. They didn't care.
The old kirkwood turned away people for the lift if they didn't have logdging and kept them running until 16:00. The new KW closed for everyone.

Day #3, friday: the wall never opened. Again, it was probably hard to make safe, but I'm pretty sure they could have opened friday.

Johannes came to join me for a few hours:

Day #4, saturday. The wall didn't open until 10. Why? Nobody knows. And then it closed at 14:00 for reasons unknown.

by the weekend, people came, teslas filled the electric parking slots

there was a line by 07:30 already

Time to go to chair 4 that had just opened.

slight line to chair 4

probably first time of the year that the wave was rideable

fawn ridge

At the end of the time, I was able to retrieve my camera pouch I dropped off the lift:

So all in all the snow was fantastic, and kirkwood as a resort was beyond disappointing in multiple ways. I will seriously consider heavenly next time.

never seen the area outside of the snow season, pretty trees

I've only ever seen caples lake when it was frozen

Then, we went to check out kirkwood. This must have been the lowest snow coverage day I've seen at kirkwood :)

the wall

which button do I push? :)

it was fun to see the magic carpets. They can be raised as the snow level goes higher

the 'temporary' lodges

still stocked

After going around KW a bit, we went around Carson Spur:

avanlache prevention gates and avalanche triggering devices when the road needs to be cleaned

After parking the car, we hiked up from Carson Spur to Thunder Mountain, and back down to Silver Lake/Kit Carson. It was a pretty easy hike up to Thunder Mountain with great views of kirkwood, Caples Lake, top of Cornice lift, and Silver Lake.

nice to see the avalanche gates from so close

these trigger the slides for avalanche safety on Carson Spur

the smaller kirkwood lake

multiple big volcanic rocks

damn, I never hiked that far with my snowboard :)

getting closer to sentinel bowl/cornice lift

nice view of silver lake

We split off with Arturo, he went back to the car, and we continued the other way towards cornice and silver lake:

looks a bit rocky, probably not a big deal that I forgot to bring my snowboard

a sign frozen in time, left as is on the wretched day of March 14th when they closed

path to sentinel bowl

woohoo, I'm a lift operator now :)

never went down this way, but it was the way back to our path

kit carson

From there, Arturo met us on the road, and we drove home to end our 11 day trip.

The snow line wasn't too low when I started driving up, except for a bit of surprise slush when I was passing a truck. Thankfully my tesla stability control, did the right thing:

strangely, the road was quite clear higher up (localized snowfalls)

Carson Spur was still in very good shape

After a bit under 4H, including a 20mn recharging stop in Manteca, I arrived at Kirkwood just before 15:00:

Sadly, by then only solitude was open, I did 2 runs that weren't bad but on my 2nd run up, I got the very bad news that while Vail said they would stay open that same morning, a few hours later, while I drove up, changed their minds and closed off everything for the season due to COVID-19. Needless to say that I wasn't happy that they couldn't make that decision in the morning, and mislead everyone into coming:

those were 2 expensive runs

Now, life sucked, it was clear that I had to leave kirkwood as quickly as possible, as the weather was worsening, but my car was very discharged. I had to recharge it just enough to get out and hopefully make it to some charging source under the snow line.

I had to take the Omo Ranch Rd by Cook's Station to get the shortest path to the Placerville Supercharger, where I barely arrived with a 5% of battery left. Omo Ranch Rd, while open, is not a safe road with snow, and doesn't get plowed. The top was dicey and I had the tradeoff of getting down quickly to get out of the snow line, without driving off the road due to snow.
The tesla estimator has been very wrong, on the trip out, it told me I'd arrive with 14%, but I arrived with 5% while driving quite slow and taking an unsafe road (the safe road around would not have gotten me there with enough battery left):

estimator went from 14% to 9% to 5% by the time I arrived

thankfully it stabilized at 5%

on the plus side, the new superchargers are fast, I got back to 80% in 30mn

That's definitely been my worst snow trip ever, except for the fact that I avoided crashing my car on the way up after that slide, or running out of battery and having my car die on the side of the road in a snowstorm.

The next morning, looked good. It looked nice, but the powder was not bottomless. You could definitely feel the crud underneath, which was unfortunate. Later in the day, 2 extra inches helped, and wind blowing made some nicer pockets of snow:

I was able to keep snow from burrying my car by using the heater

the line at cornice was surprisingly short for a sunday

the wall looked bony for this time of the season

eagle bowl was very bony

past resort boundary on the backside, was nice as usual

anything wind exposed was definitely bony, though

After a day of reasonably good snowboarding (cold though), I stayed at the towers, where I found something last minute for a couple of nights:

Unfortunately, it was a waste to have stayed for a 2nd day (monday) as anything worthwhile was closed because of the heavy wind. Such is life, but on top of that, somehow heavenly managed to open sky express during that time.
While solitude was as slow as I remember it to be, the few runs I did were not great, even in the trees, some of the snow had iced up hard (or all the new snow had been blown off, leaving the heavy crust underneath)

So, after a few crappy runs on solitude, I just drove home:

After getting my new Model 3 AWD LR, my first drive to KW I stayed conservative and stopped 10mn in Manteca to recharge 10%. After arriving, I arrived with 20% left while having driven quite hard. This gave me enough confidence that I'd be able to do it in one shot, even if that day the weather was not absolutely perfect.

So, for my 2nd drive, I planned to drive in one shot, despite the less than ideal conditions (snow at the top). This was a bit risky because if the road closed at the top of 88, I'd be in trouble. My backup plan was first to beg caltrans to escort me through, and if that failed, to roll back to jackson's bus station to use their 240V/22A charger which although not that fast would give me enough charge in 30 to 60mn to make it to the folsom supercharger. Obviously, this would have sucked, but better than being totally stuck.

Before you try to replicate this:

The biggest thing is: the lower the snowline, the lower the temperatures, the less likely you are to make it. If you don't make it, you'll have to turn back to Jackson's charging station or make it all the way to the Folsom supercharger and drive around hwy 50/89/88, which is a 45mn detour at best.

When I left, my car claimed I'd arrive with 20%, which I knew was likely optimistic:

Strangely just 9 miles into my drive, it then said I'd arrive with 22%, but it soon adjusted to 17%:

By the time I was climbing 88, my forecast was 16%. Probably because I was driving 70 to 75mph on the freeways:

However, by the time I reached lower temperatures, and then hit the snow, this dropped like a stone. Good thing I gave myself a reserve:

13%

11%

then it dropped and stayed at 9%

finally arrived safe and sound with 9%, happy to have made it in just 3h11 even with the snow at the top

notice the big drop compared to the predicted range

I could have saved maybe a few percents by driving even slower, but ultimately the lower temps and the rolling resistance from the snow definitely harmed the range by a lot in just the last 30mn of driving. Be prepared for that.

Now, I was curious of whether I could get anywhere if I hadn't been able to recharge. Allegedly I could make it barely to stateline or folsom SCs but honestly with no margin and with snow resistance, I would likely not have made it to either of the 2:

stateline with 6% used

folsom with 7% used

Now, Kirkwood nicely installed chargers last year, and keeps the spots empty of non electric cars (at least I'm told they do):

their Tesla charger is good, 10kW/48A. I didn't even know my M3 AWD could charge at 48A

otherwise, in an underground lot, charging from 110V is much slower :)

Important notes:

Fun facts:

thankfully Kirkwood has a row of chargers

I charged at higher rate (10Kw) a bit while the snow wasn't too bad

Day #1 was a bit wet, but still pretty good powder that was mostly bottomless. The conditions were tough though, bad viz, high winds and wet:

ski patrol was testing the wall for slide activity

high snow levels this year

Day #2 was much nicer, an extra foot and almost bluebird:

nice slide from the wall

After multiple runs on Cornice, I got one of the first chairs on the wall, nice runs down:

I took Eagle Bowl as soon as it opened and went to chair 2 that had just opened and got fresh tracks to chair 4, which I hadn't been able to go to at all this year yet:

chair 4 wasn't quite open yet, I did have to wait 10-15mn

the wave

this year, it has a crevasse in it, so it's closed

a lot of it was ropped off

they do warn you :)

apparently someone fell in a crevasse there and had to be ropped out

you can tell a good piece could break off

lots of fresh tracks

After many runs on chair 4, I took one last run on chair #2 and ran whiskey, which I hadn't done in forever:

To finish the day, I went up the wall and took sisters chute, which was tricky to go down but had plenty of snow after that:

entering the chutes was a big drop

After one last run at palisades, the bottom was starting to be a bit crusty, I could barely turn, so I called it a day and went home around 16:00 before the next storm got too bad:

carson Spur is very carved up

even much lower down, still high snow walls

I flew to Calgary to go meet Arturo in Sunshine, 1.5h from Calgary. Day #1 was ok enough snow, but while looking for more snow, ended up some snow waves where I missed one and ended up scraping the slope down with my goggles and nose:

my snowboard goggles pressed hard on my nose and ripped out my skin

Arturo took us big hot tub :)

Day #2 was supposed to be Lake Louise, but they got no new snow while Sunshine got another 4" or so, so we went back there:

I ended up on top of this cornice, and couldn't quite see down, but ended up painfully hiking back up. Good choice I guess

After that, we drove to Revelstoke for the next 2 days. No fresh snow on the first day, but the snow was cold and stayd in good shape:

open creek, sign me up

nice pretty birdies

we then went to hike up the top

took a little while to the top, and was only partially worth it

Day #4, revelstoke got a small dusting of a few cm, which made things a bit better:

I did some nice side country and they had helpful signs making sure I didn't get too far off track

After day #4, I had to leave Arturo there, and drove back to Lake Louise for the next day:

No fresh snow the next day, but Lake Louise was still good:

long ass line for the bottom lifts, happy I never went back down

a nice bra tree

a great run on the edge of the resort, except for the super flat section at the bottom. Thank got for poles.

by the end of the day, the crowds were a bit better

looks like they air lifted someone

After that, it was time to drive back to Calgary for a short city visit before flying home the next day.

my car predicted it would arrive with 14% left, that was very close, I would have had 10% left if I hadn't stopped to recharge

Carson Spur is looking interesting now, it closes almost as soon as snow starts falling

Got a nicely priced unit from Pyramid Peak properties and let the car charge slowly over the next 3 days

it was snowing nicely soon after I arrived

The next morning was sadly too windy, so as expected KW opened very late (11:30) and only a couple of boring lifts. I did do a few runs on chair5 until I got bored and confirmed chair6 was not going to open for the day, and went back to my condo to get some work done:

sigh, no chair6 for us :(

Day #2 had another foot+ of new snow, and the roads were still closed. I was hopeful for a great day, but chair6 only opened close to noon (i.e. very late) and only a very narrow band of it (even access to chamoix was closed, and the drain on the other side was closed too of course):

opening the door was interesting

some other doors couldn't be open at all :)

chair6 being readied, finally...

nice warning, I'd rather that they tell us that than stay closed because of limited medical help being available

the runs I was able to do from chair6 didn't suck

Day #3 sadly had the road open from Carson Pass, so people showed up :) More of chair6 got opened:

more snow falling throughout the day

I got to meet Ricky, the head of ski patrol of nicely gave me a tour and showed me the challenges they deal with

eventually the wall opened and that was quite good, I lapped it for the rest of the day :)

Day #4, I stupidly slept at kirkwood due to poor planning on my part, but drove to heavenly to meet my friend Ovidiu to do some powder runs on firebreak and palisades:

nice snow accumulation of the last days

my car was all nice and clean and came out when the sun did :)

obligatory kirkwood sign picture

drove to harrah's parking and joined Ovidiu in the long friday morning gondola line

I noticed that, nice tires on that stretcher

we walked to the first backcountry gate as the lifts weren't running yet (!)

back down to the road

big easy was open, so we took it to the fire break gate to run palisades

We got 3 nice runs on Palisades until heavenly closed the gondola for wind :(

nice runs to burnt forest (2000ft vertical), the rest was more crappy snow

back up for more

nice lenticular cloud that came from the pretty heavy wind

bridge back to firebreak and the bottom of the gondola

And after those 3 nice runs, sadly half of heavenly closed and despite it being barely 13:30, we decided that the rest of heavenly wasn't worth it, so we both went home. Thanks Ovidiu for being my guide for the half day :)

I had to drive 20mn to a nearby town and rent for a local store. They just gave me a 2mn briefing on what button does what, a crappy map showing me where to go (this included crossing multiple roads). Sadly, I ended up missing a turn that was not obvious at all and had to ride on the street only to figure out that a snowmobile cannot turn at all on asphalt, making things very hard.
Eventually I got help and directions back towards the trail and had a great 70km 2h30 ride across cold canadian wilderness.
I could have flipped the thing multiple times and hurt myself easily. I did top out at 100kph and caught air at least once, as well as scared myself a few times but managed not to understeer into a river or a half frozen lake :)

This probably wouldn't last more than a few days if they allowed americans to rent those things with no guidance, or a proper map (I had to use my GPS more than once to find breadcrumbs back), or over drive off the trail into a tree, or a lake :)

Either way, definitely had fun, and this probably beat any speed limited guided tour available anywhere else.

yeah, the planes were unexpected

I eventually reached a place that had dog sleigh rides, and turned back there

Covered wooden bridge, very nice

It almost looked the same :)

Anyway, I left my previous hotel bright and early for the 1h drive to Mt Tremblant. A big storm was coming in later that day, so it was great to have a room at the Marriott with underground parking and walking to the slopes:

the village is cute

given that it was a weekday without new snow, no lines

this was a summary of the resort: ice city...

Sadly, the first day was cold (-18C) and no new snow. Due to freezing rain the week prior, the entire place was covered with ice outside of trails that were groomed, but the grooming only lasted so long:

going down to soleil was a big mistake, sun facing slopes were of course sheer ice

After a few hours or doing mostly boring groomers and hating my life the moment I left groomers, so I left the slopes by noon and went snowmobiling instead.

Thankfully the next morning we got over 30cm of new snow, which fixed a lot of things:

my hotel gave me an early tracks pass, was able to up 45mn earlier, score

it snowed most of the day, so we got more

it didn't suck, but the snow was barely enough to cover the ice in places

not a big sign

wait, I'm out of bounds? Since when?

the village was more snowy by the end of the day :)

hot tubs were missing an Arturo :)

Day 3 got another 15 to 20cm, which helped refill the tracks somewhat from the previous day:

haha, great that they tell you

oh boy, some of the translations were wrong. This one actually said the opposite...

a bit of a line, but I was almost first to go up

not so warm either, but good to keep the snow

the north facing side had 3 good high speed chairs and better snow

more snow

pseudo side-country was pretty good

'le edge', haha

short moment of sun

other side country

By 12:30 I got off the slopes to get back to the airport, but had yummy of poutine (with chicken and bacon) for the drive back :)

The sad part was leaving just as a storm rolled in, bringing in 2-4ft of snow...