Saturday & Sunday: Each Presenting Their Own Challenges

I wouldn’t lie to you and tell you that either Saturday or Sunday was a great day of skiing at Alpine Meadows. One day offered cloudy conditions and a constant drizzle that soaked even good quality gear after a few runs; the other offered frosted chicken heads. The crowds on Saturday were probably the smallest of the holiday period. Today, with the blackout period ended, seemed like possibly it was the busiest of days.

If you took a glance at social media feeds on Saturday, most of the Tahoe ski related posts were “One and done”, “Two and too wet”, or the “Five laps and out”. We came home early and started a binge of Wayne on Amazon Prime, while also keeping an eye on the webcam with an eye toward heading back to Alpine if the sun came out. It didn’t.

One to two inches of new snow fell overnight, on top of the firmly frozen chunder leftover from Saturday. I would consider it more than dust on crust, but still tooth rattling. I also noted that Ski Patrol seemed to be having a very busy day.

After a short lunch, we decided to do a run up Summit while the line was slightly shorter, hoping the rain had not reached the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, many others had the same idea and the Summit corral experience was crushing again today. That “COVID Cluster”, where too many people are trying to jam into the corral, leaving swirling masses both before and after the gate, gives me the heebie jeebies, as I like my social distancing. The thing is, there were plenty of staff there to deal with the situation, but they didn’t. That is frustrating. Oh yes, it did indeed rain to the top yesterday.

Diminishing Storm Potential This Week

As we mentioned before, the train of storms that were expected to hit this week may have been over-hyped. There is still a storm on tap for Monday. But the Reno office of NOAA has only issued a Winter Weather Advisory, not a Winter Storm Watch. Generally speaking, that means that expected snow amounts are likely less than a foot. The Sacramento office of NOAA has issued a a Winter Storm Watch for the western slope of the Sierra, so a bit more is expected for the west side. Although Alpine Meadows does fall in to the Reno forecast area, snow totals are often closer to the Sacramento forecast for the west slope.

The latest short range NAM model shows 1.0-1.5 inches of water in this storm, which brings the potential for roughly 12-18 inches of snow at the crest. The point forecast for Alpine Meadows, at an elevation equal to about the top of Roundhouse, shows a possibility of up to a foot of snow by Tuesday morning.

The bigger thing is that winds could be problematic for tomorrow. As usual with storms, gusts are expected to be over 100 mph at the top of the mountain. That would bring Summit and Scott to a halt. The point forecast also shows winds of 45 to 50, with gusts to 60, at mid-mountain. If those winds pan out, it would almost certainly affect operations of just about everything, except for the magic carpet and possibly Subway. I’m still on a perfect streak of skiing every day since Alpine Meadows opened, so I’m hoping we dont have a complete blowout.

After that storm, the GFS is holding on to the idea for more storms by next weekend, but the track seems to be veering more to the north on recent model runs. That would limit new snow to just smaller refreshes, or more of the same. Sherwood is looking incrementally better with each passing storm but more snow is needed. Maybe it will happen or maybe not…be patient and enjoy what we have.