Kirkwood Mountain Resort is like a grown up A-Basin. It is located a good hour south of Lake Tahoe. It is surrounded by National Forest land so there is no nearby town or development outside of the resort area. The resort is tucked away in a high valley with the steep ridges of Thimble Peak at 9,876 feet looming overhead.
As is the case at A-basin, everywhere you look from the base lodge looks like steep skiable terrain; unlike A-Basin there is some development here. Kirkwood does have a small village area, some condos and even a dated hotel tower (a la Wisp), but the development is not whelming. If you remember what West Virginia’s Snowshoe was like pre-Intrawest, that is the Kirkwood groove. The nearest town is the really just Kirkwood Inn across from the entrance, and the bar at the Inn is the only nightlife not at the resort. But this place is not about condos or night life, it is about skiing!
Kirkwood boasts 86 marked trails covering 2,300 skiable acres, served by 15 lifts with 2,000 feet of vertical drop. And drop it does! The front side directly outside of the lodge area is served by two high speed quads. The longer of the two, the Cornice Express, takes skiers right to the top of the ridge for some serious in-bounds back terrain. Jumping on this quad for the first run of the day was probably not the smartest move as the snow had not loosened up. Channeling my best Tommy Moe and dropping down the aptly name Olympic trail made my quads and maybe knees shake right out of the get go. But it made the clear statement that Kirkwood is not about cruisers — it is about steeps.
The signature run at Kirkwood is The Wall, a double-black diamond expert’s-only trail that looms even higher. The ride up the Wagon Wheel chair provides plenty of time to think about what looms ahead and pick your line. The chair tops out at 9,500 feet and the The Wall falls below into the Wagon Wheel Bowl.
When we arrived after a few more runs lower on the mountain, the sun had just begun to loosen the snow into a nice spring corn. Thinking we could avoid the worst of the moguls, we traversed a bit across The Wall before dropping down. That worked great until we exited the bowl and saw the sign “Warning — Cliffs Ahead.” The bowl feeds to a trail named Dick’s Drop and into the aptly named The Drain. The trail was a series of drops into tight canyons leading down to The Drain. We were clearly over our heads. So we managed to traverses back and find an easier way down. However, that is the issue at Kirkwood: there is no real easy way down.
If there is a downside to Kirkwood it is the lack of moderate terrain. The resort built the “newer” Timber Creek base area a bit down the valley to try to make up for this. However there is excellent, more moderate terrain on the “Backside of Kirkwood” off the Sunrise Chair. It takes two chairs and a bit of a slog to get there, but the effort is worth it. Here the terrain really resembles the moderate terrain up high at A-Basin. The day we were there the long blue cruiser Happiness Is certainly was!
Overall Kirkwood was great fun. It combines a bit of old school with a bit of new. Owned by Vail Resorts there is the potential that it could grow. However, given the remote location, steep terrain, and heavy snows that bring out California’s goofy tire chain law, it will probably not become a destination resort anytime soon. If you can get here I am sure you will be impressed. Lots of ski areas claim to be a “Skier’s Mountain” but Kirkwood really is!
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