If you are familiar with Arapahoe Basin, this is Lake Tahoe's version. A great steep mountain. Almost all of the runs are from summit to base, which is a pretty neat experience.
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Kirkwood is one of those special mountains that has a combination of great quantity and quality of snow, varied terrain, lower crowds, and magical scenery. I find that Utah is all talk when it comes to great powder, where Kirkwood delivers the goods... Why? It's all in the way the snow falls, and how bottomless powder is made. In Utah new snow usually comes in cold and dry over hard pack compressed snow - so even when it dumps 2-3 feet, you're often feeling the crunch and hard snow under. Being that the snow is so dry in Utah, you sink all the way down to the hard-pack under. At Kirkwood, storms usually start a bit on the warm side near 32 degrees, then the temp will drop to 15-20 degrees. This fills in and smooths out the moguls, bumps and hard pack under the snow, and then leaves relatively light and fluffy powder on top. Don't get fooled by "Lake Tahoe / Sierra Cement" comments, and the high elevation and unique location in the range lead to incredible snow conditions.... I have skied drier and much deeper snow at Kirkwood than I have at Alta and Snowbird....
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This was my second time in Kirkwood. The previous year we donned the snowchains and made the trek over from heavenly in the middle of a historic storm that dropped 74 inches in 3 days. We rode "The Wall" without ever being able to even see the wall due to the absolute whiteout conditions. This year was quite different. Very poor snowfall all season and poor conditions the previous day at Heavenly had all of our expectations very low. We were pleasantly surprised. Snow quality was somehow much better. It was a crystal clear sunny day and many of the riders in our group had never seen mountains as steep as what they saw when they looked over the edge of the top of the Cornice Lift. (one of em had to ride the lift back down) We're typically off-piste tree riders but the groomers were fast and fun. We ventured over to the Sunrise lift and had a blast riding through a chute on the right as your going up the lift. We came back 4 days later after 10+ inches had fallen and discovered that Kirkwood actually has some quality tree riding to go with their steep and extreme terrain. The gullies were also a ton of fun after some new snowfall. The lift system seems a bit outdated with mostly 3-person chairs that either take you to the top, or are frequently closed due to wind, causing you to only be able to access the lower half of the mountain. This was a big bummer for us when we came back on the pow day and was hoping to hit some of the fun extreme terrain on the upper sections of the mountain. Kirkwood is one of my favorite mountains IF your looking for challenging chutes, cliffs, boulders and deep snow. However there is not much else to do. There's no lodging at the base and only 1 or 2 restaurants. I wouldn't recommend Kirkwood to beginners as there's not a lot of easy terrain to ride and the upper mountain can be quite daunting to even lifelong skiers. The lift ticket is considerably cheaper than at nearby Heavenly so that was a nice surprise when buying a pass. I would board here again because there’s still some chutes and cliffs that are calling my name. (I included a video link from the previous DEEP WHITEOUT day in 2019 but the pix included are from this season)
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It will take you an hour to get here from south lake on a powder day. The “village” is a joke . The lifts are old and slow. Not a huge amount of vertical. Why would anyone come here?

Because it has the best snow in California and awesome terrain, that’s why! The staff here are super friendly, the mountain is run really well, and the clientele are low key and super chill. Get here before Vail Corp ruins this mountain.
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I absolutely adore Kirkwood. It is completely unpretentious, have tons of snow, gnarly terrain, and lots of fresh stashes. There is basically no night life and lifts are really slow but that is great for me as it deters crowds. Kirkwood is without a doubt the best kept secret in Tahoe.
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I went on 1/13/2018 and the Lake Tahoe area has pretty much had a drought. All of the resorts are struggling to open trails. Kirkwood had about 85% trails open because they are a higher elevation and thus colder. Although the snow was wet and there was ice, there were a ton of trails open for not receiving much snow. There are a good variety of trails especially for intermediate. I'm sure this resort will be killer on a fresh pow pow day.
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This place is terrible...you should ski somewhere else :)
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We have been in kirkwood about 15 days so far. Brilliant terrain that pushes you np matter what's your level. The pistes feel 'organic' part of the mountain instead of carved in the mountain. People is terribly friendly and I have never witnessed #£% like in heavenly. Party and parking socks though.
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Kirkwood is great!!
Both the times I went there was good snow but the temp was never blistering. I'm mostly a black skiier, but I tried The Wall and it is steep and fun!
It's true that there are more crowds than there used to be, but it's a ghost town on weekdays!
Despite its expert reputation, Kirkwood has good intermediate cruisers! And if you're an advanced skiier like me, do laps off Cornice Express! (But make sure to try The Wall!!)
The snow is waaaayyy better than other resorts around here, and it doesn't turn to Sierra Cement as quickly because there is less sun here.
The worst things about Kirkwood are the slow lifts and lack of lodging.
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Kirkwood used to be known in powder hound circles as being the most amazing powder hound destination due to the abundant snowfalls, the interesting terrain, and the lack of crowds. Sure the snow and terrain is still great at Kirkwood and it’s uncrowded compared to Heavenly Ski Resort, but the secret is out now and freshies don’t last for a long time.

We’ve outlined the pros and cons of Kirkwood on the overview page, and you can also see how Kirkwood compares to other resorts via our USA ski resort ratings page.
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