I returned to Kirkwood on Friday and skied 9-a few minutes before 2 as planned. Even though it was a short day and I rode slow lifts The Wall (3X), Backside (5x), Caples (3x) and The Reut (once), I had 26K vertical. The entrance and most of The Wall were more treacherous than usual. The first time up I saw ski patrol trying to ski-pack the blocks groomers had left on main entrance.
I found out why when I knocked one loose that almost took me out a couple of turns later before continuing way down then hill. Snow was good, once past entrance, but there were a lot of rocks showing so I did not go very far off main path. Second time down I looked at Eagle Bowl, but did not see a way in without removing skis so I continued down ridge to very top of Conestoga/Shotgun next to Norms Nose.
I moved to the Backside where I found a good path into windsift/packed powder in trees between chair and Elevator Shaft that I repeated three times. Then I exited Backside via Thunder Saddle and Two Man Chute where snow was so good that I repeated it, even though it required two slow chairs. It started snowing about 11:30 which was OK up high, but seemed wetter around 7700' Village. I skied the Wall once more, but it was mostly survival skiing as visibility was poor and enough people were on it that there was not enough new snow left to cover the bumpy sub-surface. My face was pelted with graupel and it was wasn't until liftie at Cornice reminded me, I hadn't realized I had not pulled my masked back up after removing it to drink some water on chair.
I was surprised when I rode Cornice and skied Olympic that enough new snow had fallen on the top half that it smoothed it out and skied great. I ended up riding and skiing Cornice five more times; repeating Olympic and trying a couple of the Rabbit runs just past Sentinel that were also great with new snow for the top. I also braved the bumps once on Lookout Janek and skied mainline Zachary’s once. Seen on Cornice chair.
I almost caught up with the sun returning to Bay Area. This is within a mile or two of Tesla factory and taken through a dirty windshield.