We Have Turned The Corner: Less Pow, More Crowds

It’s looking a bit more like a holiday week. With fairer weather and pass blackouts ending, things are getting more busy at Alpine Meadows each day. The main parking lot filled and parking overflowed onto Chalet Road. Lift lines were pretty consistent at Scott, Sherwood and Roundhouse the last two days. That said, the waits are entirely reasonable and most slopes do not feel crowded, with the exception of Charity, Weasel, Outer Limits and Sherwood. It seems as if 80% of all traffic flows onto those main runs.

Yesterday we were still finding some powder stashed near the old boundary line on high traverse. But warmer temps in the afternoon cooked everything except for the most extreme north facing slopes. Today’s southeast wind put a chill back on the mountain that prevented most off piste snow from getting to soft. Moguls are really beginning to grow on north facing off piste slopes. These two factors kept most skiers on the groomers today. While grooming is being done well, things are

getting firmer and firmer with each passing day on the north and east facing slopes. South and west facing slopes are seeing a bit of corn development.

The park features continue to expand daily, which brings about a lot of discussion about whether or not it’s a good thing. It’s clear that park features bring in a younger demographic that the industry as a whole needs to survive. With the “mile long” terrain park concept taking shape, it’s becoming more of an inconvenience to those that want to avoid the park. Clearly there is the contingent that believes Dance Floor is the most prime intermediate run at Alpine. There’s also the contingent that says features on Terry’s Return are disruptive to lines from Palisades and Keyhole…and the ones that have noted that the expanded park features off Tiegel make the return to Roundhouse difficult.

There were two good questions I heard today:

• Is it possible to move the ropeline skiers left at the bottom of Dance Floor? There is currently a huge expanse of terrain roped off with no features. It would create a nice path to take Red Ridge and continue left to Sandy’s Corner on that unused part of Dance Floor. If you stand and watch a while, you will see plenty of people ducking the rope to take that line.

• What is up with tower (former lift shack) built at the top of the Dance Floor park? Is there a purpose or is it entirely a part of the “ridiculous new military theme”?

So the groomers and parks are where it’s going to be at until we either get a pow dump or a warm spell to bring on a June-uary corn cycle. Right now neither of those scenarios seem to be in the works. BA is predicting a whole lot of cold air moving in, with no real pattern change until mid-month. It’s still way better than last year.

PS forgot to say that Squaw should be epic Friday 😉