Windy…But Not A Blowout

Today turned out to be far better than expected. Once again, with the incoming storm slowing to a crawl, the forecast high winds did not materialize as quickly as expected. That meant that Alpine Meadows actually started the day with 10 of 11 chairlifts spinning and open for business.

The strong southwest wind did a great job of redistributing the snow. All you had to know is that it got awfully warm yesterday, so south and west facing terrain got pretty cooked, then refroze overnight. That meant that Sherwood, Lakeview and parts of Scott were not the places to be skiing. North and east facing terrain has stayed much cooler, this being the winter solstice, with the lowest sun angles of the season. It also helped to notice what direction the snow was blowing.

We found amazing wind buff and wind deposited fresh snow conditions around Sunspot and Tower 19, as well as the whole Yellow chair zone. We also heard good things about the Palisades area and the Face, for more advanced skiers. Slowly but surely, as the day continued, terrain became more and more limited by wind holds. Ridge winds started the day near 55mph and ended the day around 85 mph. Starting about 11am, Scott, Summit, Roundhouse, Yellow and Kangaroo did go on hold.

We wanted to note a number of good things here:

• Mountain Ops did a great job prepping the mountain for incoming crowds. Ten of eleven chairs were open and the level of grooming increased significantly, with many areas groomed wall to wall to maximize space. Yellow, Sunspot and a number of other new runs were groomed, making them much more enjoyable in flat light and potentially firm conditions.

• Some of the tighter spots around the mountain were opened up to make moving around safer and easier. The creek below Summit chair was filled to create access to the Summit lift from the Gunners return trail, or back to Roundhouse from Kangaroo Ridge. The Summit corral was also doubled in size to handle more people.

• The Hotter Wheels chair did exactly what we hoped it would do today. It helped spread people around the mountain as quickly as possible this morning, so lines started shorter at Summit and Roundhouse. It also took a lot of the ski school and team traffic off of Roundhouse.

• The lift statuses reported right after closing yesterday were transparent in reporting possible weather impacts for 4 lifts today, including Summit and Scott. This seemed to result in more people making the decision to not rush to the mountain this morning. Traffic on Highway 89 was reduced and the frenzy for parking was non-existent. Upper lots were full at Alpine Meadows today, but lower lots remained empty. That meant that mountain was not overwhelmed with skiers and riders as lifts started going on hold. We appreciate that up front honesty…a lot.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, there is still snow in the forecast. It will not be the biggest storm ever. The latest forecast discussion shows 6-10 inches possible at the ridges, and 2-4 inches at mid mountain through Sunday evening. High winds are also still in the forecast, with winds once again exceeding 100mph. More wind holds are likely tomorrow, which means that most skiing would be at the mid-mountain level. At Alpine, that generally means that Roundhouse and HotterWheels may be the top of the mountain. Maybe not?

We prefer this number to stay less than 40mph.

These tweets started 4 hours later than expected.

We’ve spent a lot of time on Roundhouse lately and renamed this zone “Mushroom Land”, as we want to keep this blog family friendly.