Pow Day & Things Got A Bit Crowded (Updated)

Shocking, amirite?

The first thing you could really call a powder day finally arrived. Then a whole lot of people delayed their Zoom meetings or ditched their Google Classrooms to make some turns in fresh snow. It only took 13 or 14 inches of new snowfall to get people motivated.

To be honest, it was quite busy at Alpine Meadows over the weekend, even without a bunch of new snow. It was so busy that I only took five runs on each of Saturday and Sunday before deciding that the risk vs reward equation was not working out so well. With the wet heavy snow falling Sunday morning, we found a hundred people hiding in the breezeway, trying to dry out. It looked a lot like a COVID inoculation lab experiment. Yikes!

I knew that today would be extra busy, without any new terrain open. Fortunately, nobody was hanging out in the breezeway. They were all running to get in line at Roundhouse for the first freshies we have seen since November 24th. After one run on Roundhouse, the line was starting to exceed the queue, and that was my sign to head to Hotter Wheels or Yellow for quicker laps. Those lines also built to “super long for a Monday”, with all lines peaking around 11am.

The lift ops team finally cut the opening ribbon on the west side access for Roundhouse this morning. That adds two more lines of access to Roundhouse, with pass control being done through the Summit RFID gates. That was a very clever solution and we’ve been waiting to see them actually use it. For the fortunate few that were in the right place at the right time, it offered a shortened wait time. Eventually the two sides evened out, with both offering a line longer than I was willing to tolerate.

On piste skiing was excellent today, certainly the best of the season. The ice and sugar on Weasel is now buried under soft new snow. The bumps on Dance Floor have been erased and replaced by a nearly full width groomed run. The moguls on Werners, Yellow and Charity have a fluffy new coat that has both softened and smallerized the bumps.

Off piste, conditions continue to be variable. If you know where you were going, there were some really fun lines that you could hit with minimal risk. For many people, they had no idea that there was only 13 inches of new snow over bare rocks, stumps and fallen trees. They still skied it and rode it like it was mid-season. Local repair shops will be doing a big business in repairing core shots after this morning. I can only hope that our ski patrollers, First Aid and our local ER did not have to do any repairs on people.

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We’ve got one more round of snow to go and then ??

The storm door has not closed just yet. There is one more storm knocking on our door, and it looks like almost a repeat of what we just saw. Expect to see snow returning Wednesday afternoon and continuing into the day Thursday. The models have been consistently showing 18-20 inches of potential snowfall for that event, hopefully with slightly colder temperatures all of the way through the storm.

While the previous storm was most likely not enough to open Summit or other major lifts, it should allow Meadow and Kangaroo to be added into the schedule. Both look like they could be ready soon. Scott and Summit need another good storm as it takes a lot of snow to build roads and ramps at the top of the mountain.

Update #2: Scratch update #1 because things are looking more back on board for Wednesday night into Thursday. Today’s models are showing 15-18 inches of snow again. This model riding gets tiresome! If that does happen, I feel like we could see Summit by Friday. It looked much better up there today once the clouds cleared.

Update #1: Scratch that hope for something big coming our way. Normally I would say the models went south, but in this case, they went north. That is exactly what you would expect in a LaNiña year. Expectations for the Wednesday night storm have been significantly reduced. As of today, it looks like it sails through overnight, leaving behind only 6-8 inches of snow. The additional system for next week also seems to be turning into a a nothingburger. That is going to limit efforts to open more terrain. Ouch. Hug a snow maker.

The models have also trended toward keeping the storm door open longer this afternoon. Last night, this next storm looked like it could be the last until the new year. But looking at the 18Z GFS, there’s a weaker system for mid next week and a stronger one around Christmas. We’ll have to keep our eyes on the models. The PNA index continues to trend neutral, and even slightly negative, which is a good sign for some storminess.

We can all enjoy these storms a lot more once we have more room to move around.

Those webcams…help us out SquAlpine

My buddy Bob sent me a copy of an email he recently sent to SVAM regarding the positioning of the webcams at Alpine Meadows. Maybe you have noticed too. You can no longer control the Alpine Peek Cam, as in seasons past. It’s zoomed in and locked onto a view that does not let you see the size of the lift line at Roundhouse. If you take a look over at the Valley With No Name, the same is true, they don’t allow you to see the Red Dog line.

In a year where they were trying to sell more daily lift tickets, this would make sense. But this is a year where they are not selling lift tickets. It seems to me the opposite is true. SVAM should want to be making sure that the mountain is not overcrowded. If guests can look from home and see that the Roundhouse line is way out there, we can save everyone some trouble by not coming out until later in the day.

Thanks for considering returning the control of the Alpine Peek Cam to the people, so we can see what we want to see…that way we can all make COVID smart decisions.