Get ready to say bye-bye to the Mother Ship, KT-22….or not.
We all knew this day would come. But, I’ve gotta admit, it’s still kinda hard to believe. Especially, when you’re riding up any chair at Squaw right now all you can think is “damn, there is a ton of snow out here!” Despite the lateness in the year, it feels really unsettling to think that lifts are going to be shutting down. Well, they are, so we’ve gotta deal with it.
Today, it appears that Red Dog, Far East, and Squaw Creek are done for the year. I’m confident that we have also seen the last of Broken Arrow, Emigrant, and Solitude. Although, if deemed necessary, there could be one more weekend where they open a couple of these chairs.
In reality, losing these chairs is no big deal. They are still keeping the important chairs open and it’s pretty astounding that they’ve had Silverado open this late. I don’t think I can remember a season where they kept Silvy rolling past mid April.
photo: Silverado looking phat during the splendid winter of 2010.
Silverado will be the next to go, closely followed by KT and Headwall. I’ve seen Squaw keep KT open, at the request of locals, into May before and maybe we’ll be lucky enough to have that happen again this year. Actually, I’m pretty confident that they will keep KT open into May on this record breaking snow year.
We’d all love to see Squaw operate KT, Headwall, The Cable Car, Gold Coast, Siberia, Shirley, and Granite open into May 8th. Reality may be more like KT, Cable Car, Links, Shirley, Granite. Which I’d be fine with as well. The main point being KT. Normal ‘Spring Operations’ would be the line up I just mentioned, but without KT.
Sausage Stew! Springtime at Squaw Valley. This pic is from the Retro Pool Party on Saturday.
“What about the park?” This will be the most interesting decision that Squaw makes. The Riviera park is pretty small and about a 6 outta 10. The new Super Pipe and the Super Jumps that Red Bull made are 10 outta 10. It would be impressive to see Squaw at least keep the Super Pipe up so we can hit it for a few weeks.
Red Bull’s private Super Pipe with flawless 22 foot walls at Squaw Valley USA.
When considering the Park situation we have to consider a whole other set of chair possibilities. If they do keep the Super Pipe we need the Mainline chair to stay open until at least May 8th. With the Riviera park, we’ll need the High Camp chair and that would be nice to have operating until closing day on May 30th. I mean, it’s springtime, you’ve gotta have a park.
