+1 on the three good days beginning Monday. Interesting how it's taking Squaw/Alpine two days longer to open Summit and Roundhouse than it did for Kirkwood to open chair 10/The Wall. I hope they can do better after storms the rest of the season. While I'm sure Kirkwood's base being ~900' higher helped, they also have much more extreme terrain that mostly or all opened and there is no easy or intermediate or even advanced way down. The main entrance at top did get scraped off to where you hoped your edge held, but there were other options.
Also interesting was that temps at Alpine base rose from below 30 before midnight to over 40 after 2 am. Hopefully they were watching those guns and not making rain.
On Wednesday, even though I didn't arrive until almost 10, I got the first parking spot after being at the other end of same row 6-7 cars away my first two days.
I skied 8 laps on Cornice with a few of them being 12 minute laps. On the last one I did the short hike to Corner Chute where the left side still had a little untracked. Also note the snow quality demonstrated by skier below me.
I moved to the long slow Wall lift and had time for sandwich and beer that I'd been carrying during my five laps there.
(Note that even though beer is from UT it was over 7%). Finally connected with @SSSdave for a lap on the Reut before getting on the road home at 2.
Employee I rode lift with said chairs 7 and 9 will open this weekend and the Backside will open the following weekend (Dec. 9-10). He also said Kirkwood will stick to their April 8 planned closing date as extending their lease with Forest Service costs too much. When I asked if it was hundreds of $ per day, he thought it was thousands. It would be interesting to see the lease.
. I guess I’ll find out today.
. Either way if they would stay open longer I would probably have a pass there.
