Hello Skiers and Riders,
Our mountain snow conditions remain very good with clear skies overhead. However, there were a lot of frozen fingers and toes on the mountain, and in the lodge over the weekend. It has just been really cold these past few mornings. Temperatures on the mountain bounced from below zero to slightly above zero each morning. Bright sun did help during the mid-day hours, but the talk of the ski day seemed to center around the cold air and freezing fingers and toes.
Someone unleashed the grooming crew Saturday allowing them free rein on the mountain. There were many runs groomed Saturday that had not been groomed in a long time. These included a couple of passes down extra runs in Wolverine Bowl, and the grooming of Standard Run off the Scott Chair. This morning I looked up to see that they had groomed The Face for the first time this year. Perhaps the growth of large moguls spurred the grooming crew to out do themselves.
Some of the south facing slopes remain scratchy from last weeks thaw and freeze, but most of the north facing slopes are in soft, or caulk-like condition (many with moguls protruding from the surface).
Saturday and Sunday at Alpine Meadows brought a good crowd to the slopes, but again it was not overwhelming which kept the lines short and slopes reasonably uncrowded, especially off the intermediate groomed runs. We noted, as we have many days this year, that the least crowded groomed area (and from our untrained eyes the least used area) is the terrain park on Dance Floor.
Over the weekend we seemed to be lapping Gentian Gully. Partially do to its peaceful uncrowded atmosphere and partially do to our ability to find smaller and softer bumps in this area. In addition, we did ski through the backcountry from Lakeview down to the lower Alpine valley a couple of times where we again found some beautiful untracked snow far from any crowds.
Enjoy your day,
Andy