ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ค. 2024
- RUN STATS:
Run Name: The Wall
Location: Kirkwood
Rating: ♦♦ (Double Black)
My Personal Rating Opinion: ♦-♦♦ (Between a single and double black)
Lift Taken: The Wall (Chair 10)
Maximum Pitch: 33 degrees
Run Type: Alpine Groomer
Run Length: 1.1 mi.
Total Vertical Drop: 1,655
Run Aspect: North
SNOW CONDITIONS: Hard-packed up top, fresh corduroy throughout the rest of the run.
DATE OF RECORDING: March 26, 2024
DESCRIPTION:
The Wall at Kirkwood is a timeless classic. Even all these years later, it's still one of my all time favorite runs. These days, I'm much more into extreme terrain but I still love me a fun crusing groomer! I'd heard rumors that on really good snow years, Kirkwood grooms The Wall. However, in my many years of skiing the mountain I never saw The Wall groomed. I imagined how amazing of a run it would be as a groomer since it's such a long journey from top to bottom and it's decently steep. In the 2024 ski season, I checked the grooming report every day and finally saw the run's status changed to "groomed overnight" on the website. I was super excited to try it!
Now what part of the run Kirkwood grooms varies based on the snowpack. As many of you know, traditionally, there are two entrances into The Wall. The first one requires you to go right, do a U-turn along a groomed catwalk, and drop in under the lift. This entrance in my opinion isn't too bad and is honestly suitable for advanced skiers (still a great run!). It essentially bypasses the upper corniced-face that is the true entrance into The Wall (AKA, the second entrance). While I was in University, my dad had the chance to ski The Wall for the first time as a groomer and according to him, they groomed the first easier entrance. Well, on the day of recording, which was a few weeks after my dad did the run, for whatever reason, they groomed the corniced entrance. If you've skied The Wall, no matter how good you are, you can agree that the first part of the corniced-entrance is quite steep. Yeah, they GROOMED THAT ENTRANCE (the second one!). I was shocked riding up the lift with my dad as I had expected they'd stick to grooming the easier entrance. But as I got to the top, it had become clear that the main cornice was actually groomed! I was so excited!
The first few turns were definitely a touch icy. Despite it being literally the second run of the day, some snowboarders had already pushed off some of the snow at the top. However, this didn't detract from the overall experience as past this initial section, the snow quality was really good. This first section was formerly the corniced face that I was talking about earlier and as such was extremely steep for a groomed run! At this point, I'm usually fully comfortable with bombing down groomers. So the fact that I actually had to turn on this first section to curb my speed was definitely surprising! Most of Kirkwood's signature groomers, minus Cold Shoulder on the backside, are defined by trees. In general, I prefer above-treeline groomers for how wide-open and epic they feel. The Wall was no exception to this, it was amazing to fly down this wide open bowl at such fast speeds!
This is only one of two double black diamond groomers that I've had the privilege of doing, the other being Imperial Ridge at Breckenridge. The difference is that Imperial Ridge is definitely more of a single black diamond. This run is actually very steep. The first few feet are much steeper than any other black diamond groomer on the mountain (Zachary, Sentinel, Conestoga, Could Shoulder, etc...). Zachary was formerly the steepest groomer I've attempted. Although it doesn't maintain it's pitch as well as Zachary, the initial section of The Wall is without a doubt much steeper!
Overall, I loved this run. I know it being groomed is very controversial with some people as it encourages less experienced visitors to try it and gets very icy/scarped off quickly. Those points are very valid, but nevertheless, I think the negatives are outweighed by the positives. Its sad that this run is more of a specialty groom because The Wall truly makes for one of the best top-to-bottom cruisers that I've done! All The Way is the other run at Kirkwood that they sometimes groom so I'm hoping that one day I'll be able to do that as well! If you see that Kirkwood has groomed The Wall and you enjoy a nice cruiser, my advice is to drop everything and head here before it gets skied out! It's definitely one of the best groomers that I've done in my life!
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING: 8/10
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:05 - The Wall
1:00 - Buckboard
EXTERNAL LINKS:
Skiing Bucket List: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Double Black Diamond Runs I've Done: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Skied it when it was groomed a few weeks ago. Definitely was fun but a lot of lower level skiers went up only because it was groomed.
I love the graphics you used to indicate the runs
Thanks man! It definitely took me a while to figure out a graphics system that I liked but I'm really happy with the one that I'm using!
Do you like moguls, that looked like to the right and left some great moguls. Nice video! Great skier!
Thank you! I do like moguls and I've done this run several times when it was all bumped up. The Wall being groomed is pretty rare so I decided to stay on-piste on the day of recording!
Cue my obligatory how does the walls steepness compare to a typical Mott or Killebrew? How about in terms of difficulty on a less groomed but not a total minefield day?
Dw about it! I love the obligatory "how does slope x compare to slope y" questions haha. This isn't even close to the steepness /difficulty of any Mott or Killebrew run, groomed or ungroomed. With the exception of maybe the main run under the chair, every single other Mott run is much steeper than The Wall. For context, I've never needed to do jump turns on The Wall but I do jump turns on pretty much every Mott/Killebrew run.
Nice run! Pointing them down FTW!😊
Thanks! I'm good at doing this on groomers like this one, gotta work on it off-piste!