California/Nevada Fixing Kirkwood's Backside

[SSSdave]

As someone skiing frequently at Kirkwood for almost 4 decades, the most important improvement the resort could make that we old timers have been complaining about forever is the frustratingly long Chair 4 Sunrise lift ride time on the Backside of the mountain. Arguable the most alpine-like high elevation ski terrain in the Tahoe region. Note, The Cirque is where the Freestyle Tour championship was held for years along with Lookout Vista's rock garden. Outstanding terrain and snow including hike for goods terrain but the lift ride puts one to sleep. The bottom half of the lift is across low gradient flats. There have been several plans over decades but as long as the plan is expensive, especially the one making it a high speed quad, it likely will never happen.

The obvious, cheapest solution but rarely mentioned by the resort, has always been to simply split the lift into two approximately equal length sections while using the current lift tower infrastructure. That and re-using the quad chairlift inventory would reduce costs. Thus lift ride times would be about half the time of the current ride for either section. They would need to add a bottom loading station for the top section (9450-8600) and an exit station for the bottom section (8600-8260). The break would be in the long flats between 8400 and 8700 feet.

 

[CalG]

Dave

Are you trying to start a petition of signatures?

Check with the yellow vest s ;;_)

 

[Tony]

I managed to hang in for four laps today, but it was my first time I could ski Sunrise this season. 2nd lap my son and I split a beer. 3rd lap we split a sandwich. 4th lap we exited via Thunder Saddle. After we all jumped off cornice (pictures on my camera and not uploadable) we skied Two Man Chute then when it looked too narrow, cut right and probably skied Bogie's Slide.

Kirkwood's master plan had/s? upgrading Sunrise to hi-speed and adding lift to top of 99 steps. But that could be a long time coming as 1) there have been no lift upgrades since Vail bought Kirkwood in 2012 and 2) new lift (which would avoid flats at bottom) would be hard to place to avoid avalanches like came through area in Jan 2011.

And Kirkwood is closing in less than 4 months (on 4/7/2019 - two weeks before Easter) no matter what. And while I don't want to give them any ideas, their next step for Sunrise and chairs 2 (also fun terrain but too short of run for slow lift ride) and 3 will probably be to put them on $ hold during the week, like Squaw does with Silverado.

 

[SSSdave]

Kirkwood future development plans have changed a lot over the years. For awhile they were focused on a Martin Point lift and later developing the other side of that ridge including a base west of Carson Spur and a high speed lift directly to Caples Crest with a fancy day lodge. All very expensive ideas that legal disasters smashed and in any case were regardless probably unrealistic financially under best circumstances. I suspect some of that dream planning was for the sake of real estate sales.

That last dream plan you noted with 99Steps plus Sunrise upgrade to hi-speed lift is an excellent reason for never doing anything due to expense. Am bringing this up in public, just hoping some of the new corporate blood at Vail may take notice reading this as another much less expensive way to think about it and hopefully fix it. And if so Vail could relax for the next decade regarding Kirkwood without having to put any more significant funds into that holding.

 

[Jim Kenney]

How tough would it be to just make a mid-station on existing Sunrise lift for loading and unloading? There are a number of fixed grip chairs that have this feature around the US. Primary expense would seem to be just a little earth-moving and adding a liftee and shack at appropriate point along lift line.

 

[SSSdave]

Indeed Jim, and we all have rode on them. In any case a lift expert needs to assess what is possible given the current quad fixed grip infrastructure though we can offer some possible ideas. There might be older Kirkwood plans to actually do this. Given the tall height of the current towers above the flat zone, they would need to change that section whether inline or offset. Offset the top lift might remain inline with a new loading tower/station while the bottom station could be offset slightly for its end tower in order to be slightly above the upper section.

 

[Tony]

One problem with adding a mid-station is that chair usually has the biggest lines at Kirkwood on weekends when snow is good, often over 5 minutes so their won't be any empty seats to fill at a mid-station. Another problem is that it would cost money, something the Vail has not spent much of on improvements at their So. Tahoe resorts (although I did see Galaxy chair at Heavenly, which did not run last year and has been upgraded from a slow double to a slow triple, running last Tue, but was not open).

While riding Sunrise last Wed, I looked at how much the chair would be shortened if it the part below the cliff band was eliminated and estimate it would be 1/4 to 1/3. So if speed is not increased, you will still end up with an 8-9 minute ride for a run that can easily be done in 2-3 minutes, especially if you stick to the groomers.

While I like the chair, the ride to ski time does not work for me for long. I always try to have a sandwich and a beer and last week even had a book on CD loaded onto my phone. Other partial solutions are to hike or ride rarely running drag lift out towards Covered Wagon Peak and Fawn Ridge to extend the time between lifts rides. And I almost always ski back to front-side through Thunder Saddle which is usually the best snow on the mountain and ranges from solid single black to much steeper. But the real solution is to upgrade it to high-speed and get the ride time down to only twice the ski time.

I took some pictures last Wed. and am also including one the shows avalanche debris that ran down gully and continued under chair in January 2017.
One solution for a long slow lift, Note cliff band in background that mid-station would probably have to be above

Semi-flat area above cliff band, but still could be affected by avalanche from Lookout Vista area to right

Master plan had a lift to top right, but would have to be designed and placed to avoid avalanche

Avalanche debris in January 2017 crossed under lift so I don't think you'd want mid-station or lift base in this area.

 

[SSSdave]

My input was not to make a mid station ala Sherwood at Alpine, but rather split the lift into two independent stations. Your 2nd and 3rd images show tower 9. Between tower 9 and tower 10 is a small rise with tower 11 beyond near the bottom of a shallow drainage that flows from Cold Shoulder and Larry's Lip down into Devil's Draw. The top of the lift is tower 22 with tower 13 at the base of Elevator Shaft. To split the lift, tower 10 and 11 would not be needed so could be removed. On the lower lift, tower 9 would be the last tower and route inline to that small rise behind it in your image to an exit station. On the upper lift, tower 12 might need to be shortened in order to drop down to a loading station at the noted bottom of the shallow drainage near tower 11. Those exiting the lower lift would ski down a short distance of a couple hundred feet horizontally on the low gradient slope to the base of the upper lift. Because the upper fixed grip quad lift would be short totally efficient with its slope, there would not be logic for an expensive detachable express lift.

On non fresh snow days, the lower lift after people had moved up the mountain, would be relatively uncrowded as skiers only skied the efficient upper lift. One could reach the base of the upper lift from Thunder Saddle or Happiness Is plus all terrain between. On fresh snow days the lower lift would receive more traffic from skiers on Sunnyside, Lookout Vista, Devils Draw, and Fawn Ridge that tends to otherwise be junk snow. The same 5 trails on the upper lift that have always at least occasionally been groomed could continue to so there would not be an issue of too many people on too few slopes as this is a large basin. Given that the basin elevation is as high as it gets in the Tahoe region, the snow is often of highest quality packed powder. Thus with more advanced skier traffic, better shaped bumps for all to see would form directly below the lift all the way down to tower 13 and also in Hully Gully. The gradient is relatively modest versus the challenging steep bump runs off of Cornice lift, much like the famous bump runs at MaryJane at Winter Park with a similar snow quality so I would predict it could become a regional favorite for those skiers. Additionally people would mix their fun with drops down into The Cirque and off The Wave. And of course on fresh days people would still climb up to ridge of Thimble Peak and Covered Wagon Peak.