Kirkweed Jan 3-4 2004 (rerun w/ pics)

[Superstar Punani]

The original thread is here: Kirkwood -- Holy


Holy Fucking Shit!!! In my mind, Saturday at Kirkweed would definitely make the "Best-Of-KW" mental movie compilation. I've replayed the entire day over and over again.

9am. I pull into the lot....Appetite for Destruction blaring to set the mood for the day..... Head up to 6. Can't find anyone. Over to funnel...straightline.....trees...pow. Light dry powder billowing.
Ripping through a foot of fresh in the Wagon Wheel trees with "Welcome to the Jungle" in my head was as good as it gets. I had this all to myself for 2 runs.

3rd run- Found Hardrider and Divegirl at the bottom of 6. "Funnel's going off!!!" Divegirl bravely tags along. Hardrider launches off the funnel launch and airs into an untouched LZ. I follow in his tracks with Axl screaming in my head
"Loaded like a freight train!!!! Flying like an aeroplane"
***WHOOOOOOMPH***
"Feeling like a spacebrain one more time tonight!!!!"
That air was SWEEEET! Divegirl charges the steep pow lines. We bomb the trees for more untracked and make a beeline for Wall, which just opened.

On the ride up We're giggling like schoolgirls picking and scoping lines. Ridge was getting DESTROYED. straighlines, huckfest, pure madness everywhere. The stoke and energy was off the scale. We spot Shoe straighlining the face heading into his usual stashes. We found Nightpanda but lost him shortly after, then Len and Greydon adopted him for the rest of the day.

Got into the trees for more pow. Met up with Mr & Mrs Shoe at the bottom. Found Legoskier. Head out to Norm's, straightline the usual chute into pow. OOORRRGHH!!! Each run gets better than before!!!

Pic: (L-R) Mr and Mrs Shoe, Hardrider with icicle fang
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16820.jpg




At around the same time Clack is being silly off of Little Jim's, doing it for Len's camera.

Backside is OPEN! WHOOOOOOO!!! FUCK YEAAAAHH!!!! There's 5 feet of new snow there and it was closed for the past 2 days.

Pic: Kirkweed's Cirque and Thunder Saddle
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16827.jpg

I had one line in my head...Monster Dump's one that keeps him awake at night:
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16500.jpg

Pic: Soulsearcher, Seen from the top.
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16823.jpg


We bomb the traverse to Thunder Saddle. I am scoping a virginal line...obvious Clack, er, Mr. Dump is still on the other side of the mountain.



Mr. Shoelaces and Mr Hardrider at the top of soulsearcher
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16822.jpg

3....2...1.....DROPPING!!!!!
"I'm on the Nighttrain bottoms up...I'm on the nighttrain fill my cup I'm on the night train, ready to crash and burn I never learn...."
The line was a blur. I remember the weightless feeling of the drop, sketchy rocks, terminal velocity into a sweeping right hand arc into bottomless pow, cranking another turn to burn the speed and then getting a momentary adrenaline overload. I think that was Nate and Legoskier spotting from below.

Over to Maggot chute. Did that one for Splat who's not around today.

We found Kellie at the bottom then back up to TS we go. I hit the same line again. Damn that shit's so addictive. Shoe bags a line in one-man and instead of the usual dogled line he goes to the left and LAUNCHES off the thing at full speed. I was way below, too far to see what was happening, but judging from the hoots and screams, he obviously went nuts.

Shoe sickquence. pic 1: Top of one man
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16824.jpg

Shoe sickquence, pic 2: Shoe takes the drop
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16825.jpg

Shoe sickquence, pic 3: powder speed burn
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16826.jpg

Again! Same line again! We're back on the 2-4 lap. Hardrider charges soulsearcher, which is getting straightline trenches carved into it by now. I hit that up for the 3rd time. We found Arty at the base.

I can't believe how few people there are and how long it took to track shit up today. Complete opposite of Mammoth yesterday. Most of the crew hike Vista while me and Arty go back to the top.

Looking down one-man. a little used up by now. The straightline runout was getting chewed up, but the Shoe line only had his bombhole in it.

Pic: Punani-Eye view of One Man before launching into the Shoe air.
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16828.jpg

With Arty spotting below he gives me the take off signal. A crowd of weekend skier types congregate above. I launch into the chute, check my speed then point it off the rock, aiming to the left of Shoe's Bombhole.....

The thing spat me out like a cannonball into what felt like bottomless powder. HOLY SHIT!!! I STUCK IT!!!! HAAAAAA!!!!!!1 Fucking stoked!!!! Thanks for being my wingman Arty. I still owe you a beer

We regrouped with the gang.

The powder frenzy continued onto gaper-shaker trail for some sweet powder lines and hucks off of lower cirque. Kellie's charging as hard, if not harder than the boys and is getting into the hucks too.

Pic: Kellie aka Wonder Woman gittin sum at LC
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16829.jpg

Hardrider "Moto-turn" on pow
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16830.jpg

Lapped LC a few times and then the usual Palisades / OB runs of top to bottom pow. This was insane....while the crew head off to Bubs ofr the beers I had to gather up my last remaining energy for another OB lap.......

Pic: Punani-Eye view of Kirkweed, seen from Outside the Boundary
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16831.jpg


We ended the day with beers and nachos at Bubs. Nothing but big smiles, stories and laughter from what was one of the best days I've had at Kirkweed.


Sunday 1/4
Ouch. The krew is in a world of hurt.
Bruised and battered bodies congregated on Sunday morning.

Clack aka Zoolander tweaked his knee yesterday and can't turn right. It felt like Arnold rammed his fist into my stomach, and hardriders. Every turn hurt, but we had to keep skiing. Not the powder frenzy yesterday, just a low key day of skiing. Wall, Norms, tree stashes were all good. Kellie, lph and Nate head OB to bag CA chute while Shoe and Hardrider nail season first lines on Pencil and Asscrack chutes.

Pic: Pencil chute and asscrack chute
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16821.jpg

Greydon Clark and I met up with Crazy Aussies 1 and 2. These guys are the most fun nutballs to watch. They did upper Cham in the sketchiest conditions I've ever seen- windscoured hardpack and rock to intant death if you fuck up. Lapped the stuff we didn;t ski yesterday. Even the tracked up stuff was still nice and soft.


Pic: Crazy Aussies 1 and 2, in uniform, prepare to drop upper Cham

Pic: The view of Upper Cham

Caught up with Hardrider and Shoe. We spotted a slide that took out CA chute and hoped our crew was OK....sure enough they were at Bub's having beers and watching lph's footage at the end of the day.

1 day surfing perfect little barrels, 1 day at Mammy, 2 at Kirkweed, all pow......so far 2004 has been The Shit.

[rightcoast]

sick sick sick.
thats all.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

sweet! rad! gnarly! siiick! bodacious! happy fun times! fantastic! excellent! sick! killer!

[watersnowdirt]

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!

Wish I'd be there on Saturday (I knew I'd regret not staying), but glad you all got the goods!!!

[slippy]

So Soul Searcher is the green line, and that's the line you skied? And Upper Cham line is dropping onto the ridge and skiing off the point fall-line? Is it a str8line or can you make a couple turns before taking off the point? Or do you jump off the sides of that ridge?

[splat]

Pu - What you're calling One Man is Boulder Narrows aka Tremmans. Based on the maps that Kirkwood puts out, anyone would be hard pressed to know where one man and two man are, but that ain't either.

edit: that camera takes nice pics.

[Superstar Punani]

Originally posted by slippy
So Soul Searcher is the green line, and that's the line you skied? And Upper Cham line is dropping onto the ridge and skiing off the point fall-line? Is it a str8line or can you make a couple turns before taking off the point? Or do you jump off the sides of that ridge?

SS is the red line. The Green line is what Monster Dump skied before the dump.

Fall line point- You can do that, but you'd better have your wallet out...'cause you're gonna pay.

A local skier died on a straightline attempt couple seasons ago, the typical line is to drop in, airplane turn left, straight line a little bit, big sweeping right hand turn around skiers left of the point, and stop before you explode into the bump field or trees

Originally posted by splat
Pu - What you're calling One Man is Boulder Narrows aka Tremmans. Based on the maps that Kirkwood puts out, anyone would be hard pressed to know where one man and two man are, but that ain't either.

Ain't that the beauty of Kirkweed: Same line, different names

Fucked if I know where all the backside runs are on the map....1-man, 2 man, Bogey's slide.....

[gincognito]

Me likey.
Me likey a lot.

Drool.

Sick and ashamed and happy (and working on airline tickets),
d.

[Skidawg]

Great pics Punani. Thanks for the memories..

[splat]

Originally posted by Punani
Ain't that the beauty of Kirkweed: ....1-man, 2 man, Bogey's slide.....

Yeah, those names are meaningless as Kirkwood puts them out.
Sure hate to have to tell a troller where to go from the bottom of 2 to get to a serious medical emergency.

[slippy]

I was wondering about the bump field, it's hard to tell if it goes from chopped up snow to defined bumps or if it's all bumps. How did the guy die? I can't see the landing. I hope he at least tried it on a big powder day.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Originally posted by slippy
I was wondering about the bump field, it's hard to tell if it goes from chopped up snow to defined bumps or if it's all bumps. How did the guy die? I can't see the landing. I hope he at least tried it on a big powder day.

I had a picture of upper cham from straight on that I'm trying to find. from straight on you can see all the rocks that are just felow the cornice.

[Tippster]

Thanks, SuPu. Goddamn, I have to get out of this office, this town, this area...

[CRACKER]

WOW!This get's my vote for the best Weed report ever!

[FreakofSnow]

Looking good. Complete and utter gnar gnar.

[board]

Damn fine job ! ! !

[Kellie]

wow! sometimes i hate the cameras slowing down the skiing, but i gotta admit it's cool to see the pictures later!

nate, any luck with saving the film?

thanks pu! that was certainly a great day!!!

[Clack]

And the actuall line for soul searcher is to the right of that point so you can't really see it that well. You get the basic idea though.

I think punani was afraid to look over the edge.

(nice pics though)

[slippy]

I thought the SS line was a double, using the point in da middle. That explains why the red line looks wrong.

[Clack]

Last week about 30 feet into the choke there was a rock on the right that you could air to the bottom but this week it was basically covered and you just had to go around it.

If pu had taken the damn picture in the right place it'd be self explanitory.

[splat]

Originally posted by CRACKER
WOW!This get's my vote for the best Weed report ever!

Doooood? Nice pics the Pu did, too, eh?

[Clack]

Here we go.

The green line is the same green line from before. The red line is what SS could have been before 3 more feet fell into it. The blue line was the one we all hit Saturday. The pic from the top doesn't look into the actual chute so this gives a bit of a distorted view.

Why do they always look so weenie from the bottom?


http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic16838.jpg

[splat]

I have a slide of TeleRob doing mach air into SS around here somewhere, flying by that rock that sticks up......

[davey]

nice pics man, great report

[bigtwig00]

on the red line... is that a clif or what?