It was a bit more than dust on crust, not much more, but still better than it could have been. It was the first pow day in over a week at Alpine Meadows, and it changed the spirit of many skiers and boarders this morning. There was no update to the official report today, so I’ll give you my best estimates. When lifts rolled this morning there was about 10 millimeters of new snow at the base and somewhere around 2-3 inches at the top of Summit. Over the course of the morning, another inch or two fell. Sure, it was not enough to make a real difference, but it sure was fun.
Many people were fooled into thinking “that looks pretty smooth”, just before entering ungroomed terrain at high speeds. In fact I was fooled today at Tower 19, Powerline and Seldom Slides Trees. Each time I believed that maybe more snow had fallen or had blown in. Each time I was met by bone jarring bumps and ruts, as the snow had softened quite a bit yesterday afternoon before freezing solid overnight.
So the powder covered groomers is really where it was at today. Fortunately the grooming crew had covered a lot of terrain last night and has been doing an awesome job. There were no curbs or ruts or death cookies to speak of today. In all of my travels I only hit one frozen little death cookie on Sherwood. That meant that if you had a good knowledge of the groomer paths and sharp edges to grip the firm surface under the powder, you could really put the pedal to the metal on uncrowded slopes today.
Sometime around noon, the sun came out, and it became clear there would not be enough powder to improve conditions. I took that as a sign it was time to catch up on grocery shopping, now that you can get into local stores again.
The weather for this week is still questionable. BA says that the next storm will deliver somewhere between an inch and a foot of snow at the crest on Wednesday night and Thursday. The different models are all over the place. otherwise we are in that old pattern of “the weather may change in 10 days” mode. Very cold temps are predicted for the upcoming weekend. We’re sure it will be warmer at Squaw Valley 😉