Kirkwood’s Cirque Solo Satanic Ski – 05/16/04

5/15/04

SQUAW – Solo Mission I

Hit groomers off of Granite Chief and Shirley Lake, hike Granite Peak, did 5-6 park laps in the well-manicured Superpipe and tables on Mainline chair, hiked the Palisades, and then skied/hiked over to KT-22 and skied solid-pitch-buttery corn down to my 300 yard walk to the villiage. When did they allow this end of season hiking?…as I remember, at least a few years back, they banned hiking even to Granite Peak late in the season.

5/16/04

Kirkwood Cirque – Solo mission II

Cell-phone buzzes at 5:45 am in South Lake, buy some coffee from meth’d-out acne-ridden dude at 7-eleven, arrive at KW at 7:00 AM…

MUSIC: Spirit – Soul Survivor

Ski at a Higher Level….

Parked at the Mountain Village a few feet from the base of the Wall chair. Not a human sole can be found. Skinned up Buckboard….

Tim Cohee decided to plow a skin-track for me up the wall…

Still some deep snowpack….

Top of the Wall… 1 hour total skin time.

Kirkwood Meadows…

Silver Lake…Its crazy how the Sierras hold snow…on one aspect, none. Around the corner, 10 feet….go figure.

Looking South into the Sierras…

The Cirque…

Top of the Cirque…the only way from the top…the narrow spot before the bowl will probably be unskiable by next week. Only ski length width, and scraped out from Arty and Hardrider earlier in the week.

The approach from above…

Mid-chute…

Skied down just above the meadow and then skinned back up to Thunder Saddle and then hiked the ridge back to the top. View of the backside and California Chutes…

This time I headed skier’s left out of the main chute and descended the highlight of the weekend. A silky smooth corn steep chute that descends half of the Cirque…again, I don’t know names.

Had a blast…Lph mentioned last week how erie KW is with not a single sole on the hill or in <cough> town. Although, it didn’t feel too erie when I was skiing the cirque twice!!!