Busiest Weekend Of The Year?

There’s no official word on whether or not it was the busiest weekend of the year or not. But nonetheless, the signs were all there. On Saturday, the main lot was full, as was Chalet Road, White Wolf and Deer Park. It appeared that some cars also parked at the water company and along Highway 89. There were significant lines at most lifts and even some off piste runs got crowded. Sunday was slightly less busy, but still quite busy.

We spent some time riding ABC on Saturday and noted that Pygmy Forest, Palisades and Keyhole were all more crowded than we have ever seen them. For those keeping score, it may even be a safe bet to say that more people used Keyhole this weekend than those that used the terrain parks.

Clearly there was some pent up demand for fresh snow! Alpine Meadows did a great job of gearing up for that demand, with all lifts running Saturday, efficient line control in place, and a lot of immaculate grooming. Nice work.

The “KCRA Effect” was in full force this weekend. Most of the Northern California media outlets had billed this as a great powder weekend, luring people to Tahoe with an expectation of fresh powder. Unfortunately, casual skiers and snowboarders may be unaware of the effects of that big ball of fire in the sky. There really is no such thing as a bluebird powder day in March (or later). A short period of sunshine cooks the snow quickly. While northern slopes offered some chalky winter snow, most other exposures offered soft manky chunder off piste in the afternoons, and firm corral off piste in the mornings. So with the exception of the aforementioned terrain off of ABC, the groomers tended to offer better conditions for most skiers and riders.

The groomers tended toward the busy side, with one nice exception. Alpine had nicely groomed a run approximately one mile long and cordoned it off with ribbon, which kept off most traffic. It made a very convenient expressway from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain where there was virtually no traffic. Alpine also nicely added some fun contours to this run that allowed for some fun slash turns. There were some other pieces of hardware scattered about as if someone had not picked up their toys. I believe this new run is called the “Firing Line”. Again, it was very thoughtful of Alpine to provide this fast, traffic free route down the mountain on this busiest of weekends.

The new snow allowed us to enjoy a lot of places that have been off limits or unpleasant for awhile. The D Chutes were skiing excellent all weekend as was High Yellow, Sherwood Cliffs, Lower Saddle and Counterweight Gully. The Three Sisters were also filled back in and offered some fun turns too.

We had hoped to report on the OakleyAMJam slopestyle event in the park today, but sadly, the event was cancelled due to a lack of participants. There was another park event this weekend at Northstar and evidently not enough park riders to support two events.

The next week is looking really warm…too warm. It’s time to start your snow dance again. We started by washing two cars today…