An “Average” Season Is Still Awesome At Alpine Meadows

We said it all through the summer. We just hoped that this season would be somewhere near average, and it would seem epic. Truth be told, that’s exactly what’s happening. Bryan Allegretto over at OpenSnow.com released some killer new graphs today that make it very easy to see where we’ve been this season. Alpine Meadows is currently at 101% of average, and when you look at OpenSnow’s graph, we’ve been at average all along.

That said, the skiing and riding continues to be very good. A little inside slider snuck in overnight, leaving about an inch of new snow. While that had little impact on off piste terrain, the groomed runs were silly good this morning. The only catch was finding groomed runs where you didn’t need a foghorn and high powered fog lights. Our first run down Sunspot was vertigo inspiring, and indeed I caught an edge and slid 100 yards downslope collecting that new snow down my back. That sent us to the sunny side of the mountain, where there was still no view of the lake, but much better visibility on the runs.

Moguls are starting to appear in earnest in many parts of the mountain as it’s now been several days since we have seen a lot of snow. Sherwood Face, Lower Idiot’s and Yellow are becoming mogul lover’s dreams. We were still able to find some very soft powder patches in the trees, but most of the powder that has seen sun has started to consolidate into something more heavy and chalky.

The crowds were slightly smaller on the slopes today, and most lift lines seemed a bit shorter, with the exception of Scott. The roads were another story. Either there was another protest over at Squaw Valley this morning causing a backup, or the whole world arrived to ski Silverado today. We heard several reports of people taking an hour to get to Alpine Meadows from Truckee this morning, and the same for the return trip. Soon it will be over, until everyone decides they absolutely must ski in Tahoe for MLK weekend.

The models are still holding relatively steady, as long as you only look at the GFS. The first storm on Sunday-Monday continues to dive south offshore into Baja. The second storm for Wednesday and Thursday still takes a pretty direct aim at all of California, and brings the potential for about a foot of snow. By the second week of January, the GFS is picking up on some significant El Niño driven storms that appear to drag in some subtropical moisture. Here’s a snapshot of the total precipitation for the next 16 days:

Remember, that nearly every 16 day outlook we posted last year always included a big island of white over California, meaning no precipitation expected. It’s nice to be able to expect some wet weather on some consistent basis. Snow levels could be the bugaboo as far as Tahoe skiing is concerned. it’s a bit early to tell just yet. In the mean time, we’ll keep doing what we can to avoid holiday traffic both on and off the hill.