The sun had trouble getting past a layer of high clouds today, so it was not quite your typical spring day. Fortunately the frontside groomers were all in perfect shape and quite soft, even when lifts spun early at 8:30 am this morning. With skier and boarder traffic nearly non-existent at the early hour, it was easy to do some ripping top to bottom runs on perfect snow.
One things seems to be clear, Alpine Meadows is a good place to be for Gold pass holders on a holiday weekend. With some pass holders blacked out, and other people just unwilling to shell out $104 to ski and ride Alpine on a holiday weekend, it was another very unbusy day. We saw line control implemented for a short time on Summit this morning and the rest of the day was simply a matter of 2 minute lines.
Even with the sun behind clouds, eventually things did begin to soften, just a couple of hours behind schedule. By noon, Sherwood Face and South Face were in prime time, while the Promised Land and other Scott locations became favorable around 2 pm. In addition to the corn, we found some nice chalky snow conditions, where last week’s powder had consolidated, on north facing protected terrain. That was a good thing to discover, as temps are supposed to cool a lot in the next 2 days, making south facing slopes less attractive.
There were a couple of different events going on today to keep people busy. The popular Tahoe Junior Freeride Series has its Alpine Meadows stop this weekend. With approximately 140 competitors, aged 11-17, it’s a huge event. Today’s venue was on Pond Slope and we saw some little rippers take some fantastic lines. As of this post, results are not yet available from Day 1. The competition will continue tomorrow.
The Ice Bar party also seemed to draw a crowd today, with a BBQ, music, PBR and hooping. There seemed to a be a lot of happy people there and that’s cool. We were just too busy enjoying uncrowded lines on South Face and Sherwood Face.
If you go to Squaw tomorrow, you can go to Starbucks in the Village AND on the slopes. 😉