Plan B: Thimble Peak - a worthy alternative to the original plan

Whenever I drive to Carson pass from east during the winter, I see the nice east facing slopes of Red Lake - and Stevens Peak, which look very inviting for skiing. David Wonser praises Red Lake Peak's east face on his website as "some of the best corn skiing terrain in Carson Pass". And that's exactly what my plan was for the day. However, while driving there I noticed already on Luther Pass that this plan might not be possible any more due to the lack of snow in the lower east facing slopes in this area. Since I kind of suspected this might be the case, I had plan B (and even plan C) in my pocket: Plan B: Thimble Peak from the (closed) ski resort in Kirkwood. Even though Kirkwood is usually blessed with lots of snow until very late in the season, the ski resort typically closes relatively early, I believe due to the lack of customers at this time of the year. However, the webcams still showed plenty of snow all the way down to the village.

I park my car in the huge and empty parking lot near The Wall and The Reut chair lifts and follow those slopes to the top of 'The Wall'. Unfortunately, the night was cloudy and the snow did not freeze, but is rather soft and I expect to encounter not the best conditions for skiing down. However, it makes the rather steep ascent (slightly more than 35° near the top) easier and feasible even without the ski crampons. During my ascent the clouds slowly blow away and it gets sunnier by the minute, but the wind is rather intense.

From the top of the chair lift it's a short distance to the foot of Thimble Peak. To my surprise, there is only very little snow left on the west facing side of the mountain and I actually have to make a little detour in order to leave my skis on. At the base of Thimble Peak I then take my skis off and climb to the false summit by foot. I don't feel like climbing the very exposed and difficult true summit with my ski boots, but skip that today and make a long lunch break on the sunny lee side instead.

For skiing back down to Kirkwood I choose the nice and wide open east face of the mountain. To my surprise the snow is almost perfect. Somewhat soft but not too much. Not bad at all, considering that it didn't freeze over night. Near the saddle at point 8961, I drop north back into the ski resort and ski down to the village along the slopes.