It’s A Whole New Ballgame, And Alpine Meadows Is Winning

It was a rough summer and fall season for those of us that are ski-aholics or otherwise in love with sliding on the snow. We had the rug pulled out from under our season last March, and then spent the next 200 days wondering whether the lifts would turn again this season. Armchair experts provided their opinions in online forums, podcasts and Facebook pages – all while the rest of the world was more worried about just how bad a second or third wave of COVID-19 would affect everything near and dear to us.

There was an audible sigh of relief when ski areas began resuming operations in early November. Even though Alpine Meadows was not the first to open, the hope that we would soon again be sliding on snow became very real. Even when our season started on November 24th, nobody really had all of the answers as to how to make it all work. It certainly has been a process.

As lifts started turning, there were some signs that things would be different. The signs were the easy part, the ones that asked visitors to mask up and maintain social distancing. The initial re-configuration of lift corrals to provide spacing between rows also came as no surprise. The closure of the interior of the lodge was an unpopular, but necessary step in making things safer for guests and employees. But it was not supported by all guests, nor was the simple act of wearing an acceptable mask at all times when not headed downhill.

At first it seemed like a losing battle. Not only were there guests that didn’t want to wear a mask, it was tough to find employees that were willing to enforce the policy. Other guests had trouble understanding how to keep 6 away from others, even with those convenient measuring devices attached to their feet. But the Alpine Meadows staff has been determined to make it work. Today marked the 27th day of our season, and I have been there each and every one of those days to see the changes. It’s working. I’m really proud of the team. Here’s what we’ve seen:

• When it comes to mask enforcement, you no longer hear people say that it’s not their department. Everyone seems to have come together to understand that it’s everyone’s job. At the major lifts, you see mask enforcement being done by lift ops, mountain hosts, ski instructors, ski patrol, right on up through the department managers. I heard that Ron Cohen, COO of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows was doing enforcement at Roundhouse on Saturday morning. It’s working. Mask compliance is way up since the season began.

• The lift operations staff has done reconfiguration after reconfiguration of lift corrals this year. The current setups look more complicated for setup than the old configurations by a scale of 3 or 4 times. Looking at the details:

Roundhouse: Went from 2 lines, to 3 lines and then to 4 lines, with plenty of space between each line. When lines exceeded the corrals, creating a cluster at the entry point, the corrals were extended to keep thing orderly. Eventually the lines were turned at a 45 degree angle to allow for a maximum length of flat area to make it easy to stay off of the tails of the guests in front of you. The current setup seems like it must take hours to set up each morning.

Treeline Cirque: Went from 2 lines to 3 lines, with some options to switch lines midway through the corral. When the lines started exceeding the corral, a extra 90 degree section was added to the end. That turn also serves to slow down those skiers and boarders that used to enter that corral carrying far too much speed.

But the masterpiece of the season has been the Summit chairlift, which I think is the best lift in the Lake Tahoe area. It serves an enormous amount of terrain, even with the mountain only partially open. It’s obvious that the mountain ops team has been thinking the process through while waiting for enough snow to fill in the top of the mountain.

Because it’s such an awesome lift, the Summit Chair always draws a crowd. On a big day, you frequently see times where the crowd exceeds the corral, leaving a huge moving blob of guests outside of the RFID gates, walking over each other skis to get through a gate and into one of the lines. This weekend, the Alpine Meadows team demonstrated a plan that tackled that issue head on. It’s a plan that relies not just on a change of configuration, but also on some dedicated staff, doing their job well. Here’s the outline:

Skiers and riders coming to Summit enter into the “entry lines” that extend about 100 feet up the hill from the RFID gates. Currently there are two, but it seems possible an additional lane could be added on a big day.

There’s 3 yellow hot spots noted above where people normally bunch up, making social distancing difficult. This weekend, Alpine meadows used a staff person at each zone to make sure that didn’t happen. A gatekeeper, with an actual stop sign, controlled the number of people coming through the RFID gates. Once people got the idea of what was happening, most waited patiently at the entry line until they were called forward. Once inside the corral, the line host helped you find your way quickly to the shortest line so the next guests were admitted. At the front of the line, another employee did some very active line control, getting chairs to go up with a minimum of three people whenever possible, while not letting anyone get bunched up. A fourth staff person, with a megaphone, stood mid-corral, giving mask reminders as necessary.

When the opening of Summit seemed imminent last week, I was dreading the crowds and the potential for too many people bunched up in space. I know I was not the only person that was really pleasantly surprised by how efficiently things were running this weekend. Kudos to the collective minds that made that happen.

I hope that working together, as guests, with the staff, we can make sure that we get a full season at Alpine Meadows. For many of us it’s that little piece of sanity during this crazy pandemic life. Let’s not lose it.