It was a fantastic spring day at Alpine Meadows Saturday. Conditions varied wildy, depending on the exposure and timing during the day. Although I missed this week’s midweek storm, it’s clear that 14 inches of wet snow helped a lot. The brown puddles in the base area were gone, and a lot of dirty snow had turned white again. Most importantly, areas of the upper mountain that had large moguls were buffed out very nicely.
We started our morning on the front side, enjoying winter-like snow conditions on race ready groomers. Wolverine Bowl was in perfect mid winter condition this morning. We then ventured onto the smooth chalky slopes of the D Chutes, with D5 offering the smoothest chalk, and in the other direction out to Pygmy Forest and Palisades.
After lunch, we headed over to the Sherwood side, which got a one weekend reprieve due to the new snow. The result of the new snow on the south facing slopes was to essentially balance out any snow loss over the week. Coverage remained about the same as last week, but much smoother. Unfortunately, their had not been quite enough freeze-thaw cycles yet – so the snow was unpredictably sticky in spots. Still we managed to have a lot of fun on South Face and Powerline. Although Don’s Run was looking like it offered untracked corn – it’s chewing gum like consistency left us laughing for several runs.
Lakeview also remained open another week with the new snow. It was terra firma on the way to Sherwood after lunch. But an hour later, we managed to catch Outer Limits at a perfect stage of softness, managing three laps before the stickies set in. Heading back to the front side, we looped back around Sherwood to catch High Yellow Gully – where it was once again winter. All in all – a great spring day. We can’t wait for more tomorrow.