KT-2

Posted by Big Al on December 14, 2009 under The Weekly Deal | 2 Comments to Read

She’s open!! It happened mid-morning today and as you might know, it was awesome. The day started with catskiing-esque turns on Shirley and Gold Coast. Terrain features (no, you jubbers, not those ones) from natural mountains make for a lot of fun. One of the best things about riding Squaw early in the year is that you get to watch the mountain change as it goes through the season and Shirley is one of those fun places to see it. Two spots stand out: 1) you can ski the “Extreme Chutes” (where they always have steeps camps) very early-season; very late-season it’s a bit of a (buzz) testing ground for folks kickin’ it at the High Camp pool; 2) the main rock in the middle of the lower Funnel is a great snow meter and right now it looks like it’s taking a deep breath.

So: why KT-2? Well because that’s about how many turns you needed to get to the bottom today. ”Hey Al, those are heli turns up there!” someone shouted at me in the KT line. ‘What does that guy know?’ I thought to myself. Oh wait, he might have an idea – it was Points North Heli owner Kevin Quinn.  The snow was deep but really fast. It has that almost-wind-buff density going right now so it’s definitely deeper than what you’d call ’speed cream’ but it’s also a lot faster than you’d expect after getting 46″ of snow in three days. Robb Gaffney called it “sponge cake” (I think he had a lot of time to come up with that while waiting for me and a buddy to catch up).

KT is just one of those places. I’m not usually tough enough so I simply bow to it then bolt on big days. I asked one of the black-camo’d lift maintenance crew guys when the people on the first chairs showed up to stake their claim: “Way earlier than they needed to” was the reply. If you were to say that to J. Blair or any of the other fooh’s who are full-blown KT O.C.D. addicts they’d probably look at each other and grin as their chair glided over billions of undisturbed crystals under North America’s single-best chair.

I have a video up of the first tracks down KT from this morning. It wasn’t the typical assault on the Fingers but it was really fun and you can hear the crowd at the bottom yipping away. Right now it’s 2:53pm and I’m going to head back out for Lasties on KT, more later…

Mon night, 7pm-ish: Here’s the KT Opening video I took. It’s pretty mellow so only click it if you are In The Mood. By the way, KT-22 was so named because it took Sandy Poulsen, the “First Lady of Squaw Valley”, twenty-two kick turns to make it down from the summit in 1948.

THIS WEEKEND:

Friday: Season Passholder Reunion Party. Plaza Bar 3:30 – 7:00, live music featuring “The Beergardners,” Happy Hour 3:30 – 4:30 with $1.75 draft beer, peanuts in the shell just like the old days & Blue Light Specials – get set for 10 min of madness when the Blue Light goes on. Also, special showing of “Ski Squaw Style”  the 1968 SV promo movie.

Saturday: 18th Annual Snow Gods’ Ball. A Squaw fave benefiting the SV Avalanche Awareness Ed. Fund (which is a really worthy thing, btw: free beacon clinics, scholarships for Avy I classes, etc.).

© 2009 Alex West all photos and copy; Passholder Party poster courtesy Tom O’Neill.