It was another great morning of skiing at Alpine Meadows. I put in 13 laps before letting the adult in me take charge so I could get some Christmas presents in the mail. Hopefully my Dad will appreciate that I may have given up some turns on perfect little moguls on Ladies Slalom.
Everything that has been skiing well continued to ski well today. A front passed to the north yesterday evening. There wasn’t much snow, but it did drizzle and freeze, leading to a lot of black ice on roads this morning and frozen corduroy on the ski slopes. I could spend some time giving specifics, but it all would be for naught, as the next storm is on our door step, leading to entirely different conditions.
There have not been any huge terrain expansions yet this week. The snow making team has been blasting away at the Meadow zone to make more room for beginners and lessons. The Kangaroo run has been groomed the last two days. The chair is not open yet but we did traverse over this morning and enjoyed half a run of corduroy with very little traffic. I also saw that patrol relaxed the boundary to the south of Rock Garden some time yesterday, allowing people to traverse into Deer Camp and the lower part of High Yellow and Sherwood Cliffs.
The bigger expansion on the way is that there was a lot of activity around Summit today. A cat did some preliminary work in Alpine Bowl overnight. We also noted that Summit was spinning much of the morning and patrollers were hauling equipment to the top of the mountain. The word on the street is that we could see Summit open on Friday or Saturday, pending how much snow falls Thursday.
My prediction is that we’re going to see a staggered opening that makes the marketing department happy. Summit opens for Friday…look, new powder! Then some other lift opens at the Valley With No Name on Saturday…and once again the marketing department can again say “look, new powder.”
That does lead to the question of what will be opening over the hill? So far, only Gold Coast has opened at the top of the mountain. If I had to guess, the most likely candidates for opening would be Shirley, Big Blue and maybe Siberia. But, many people are saying that KT22 will open for the weekend as well. Just in case, consider going to the other side!
The incoming storm looks pretty good so far. I know that NOAA has only issued a winter weather advisory, rather than a winter storm warning. That means they are expecting less than a foot of snow. That’s probably true for Truckee and North Lake Tahoe communities. There’s not a lot of forcing with the system. It will barely make it past the crest of the Sierra.
Fortunately, Alpine Meadows is at the crest of the Sierra and should get a get a good dose of snow. The point forecast for Alpine, at top of Roundhouse elevation, has bumped up a couple inches since yesterday:
The shorter range NAM model also looks good right at the crest, showing 1 to 2 inches of water within the storm. That could lead to 1 to 2 feet of snow closer to the top. We hope it happens. The winds are also forecast to be quite strong, over 100 mph at the crest overnight. You can also see on this pic how quickly the precipitation drops off to the east, with Reno getting pretty much nothing.
My fingers and toes are crossed…
I went slumming at the Valley with No Name this afternoon after a great morning at Alpine.
The snow is pretty good over there (basically the same as here, but with longer runs). We skied to the Resort at Squaw Creek, then went up the Funnytel to Gold Coast. Siberia, Big Blue and Shirly were all spinning, but not loading the public. Sibo looks pretty bare right at the top of the bowl, but you could ski the ridge down toward Gold Coast. I couln’t get close enough to Shirley to look down into it, but the top looks good. I’d be surprised if they don’t pop some combination of those three lifts in the next day or two.
If you go over there (really, you should), I’d take Squaw One to get up to the upper mountain, assuming Siberia or Big Blue are running. The Funi is a cluster (it had a line at 1:30pm when I got there). Squaw One doesn’t get you high enough to load Gold Coast, but it does get you to Sibo or Big Blue, which in turn will access the top.