A little sunshine, or should I say a cloudless sky, and everyone and their grandmother shows up to ski.Where were they yesterday when wind speeds closed most lifts and clear droplets fell from the sky? I thought about taking a few runs in the morning Monday, but Treeline Cirque was all that was really turning do to the high winds and very wet snow, or perhaps rain, was falling from the sky. One minute in my driveway was all it took to send me downhill to the Crest Café for a cup of coffee and a warm office. Of course my good buddy Mark was on the chair taking a few runs and soaking himself to the bone. As I mentioned to him this morning while riding Roundhouse or Yellow Chairs, I would not have given yesterday’s conditions a second thought, but that was when I was five year old.
Just in case you have not checked the wind speeds reached yesterday during the storm, you might be interested to know that the high gust appears to have been 191 miles per hour on the crest.
That was yesterday and today winds dropped and sunshine took over. Snow surface conditions were on the interesting side of the scale this morning. Above Roundhouse a few inches of wet snow had fallen. Under the few inches of new snow we found ice. Wet drops fell during the day, froze everything on the surface, after which a little new snow stuck.
I enjoyed making turns below Tower 19. It did not take long for the Summit line to grow beyond our low tolerance point so we spent time riding Roundhouse. Groomed areas were fine, although there were some large death cookies to deal with along the way. Chicken Leg or what might be called Yellow Trail alternative skied well. I found soft snow mingled with patches of ice between Werner’s Schuss and Charity. God’s Knob offered soft turns with slick patches that attempted to trick me up. Off the Scott Chair Standard Run could be enjoyed and from the top of Treeline Cirque tight turns in the trees made me smile.
The photos attached show a tree at the top of Scott Chair with icicles hanging off pine needles and a beautiful smooth surface that was hiding ice underneath.In conclusion, the morning offered variable conditions with the best snow higher up on the mountain.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
I noticed that the parking lot did fill today, and parking was utilized on both Chalet Road and at White Wolf. That said, other than Summit, seemed less crowded than Sunday. I’m guessing that today individuals skipped work and drove by themselves to Alpine, rather than families coming for ski teams.
I skied a couple of hours longer than Andy, all on the lower mountain. As the temperatures warmed a bit, things softened quite a bit more. Really quite a good day, me thinks.
Re Andy’s post: just wondering if 191 mph winds is a typo or a fact? A wow probably either way.
The Reno NOAA office says that reading is likely inaccurate. Peaks gusts at neighbors to the north were around 120mph. I would be suspicious that the 191mph occurred twice, 15 minutes apart.
I’m just wondering what Andy has against Grandmothers?????
Liz,
I got nothin against grandmas. It is a saying that I use on occasion when there are more people gathered somewhere than there should be (overcrowding). Everyone showed up to ski and brought all there friends (and their grandmothers) .
😻OK you’re forgiven… how come Grampa’s don’t ski?
Hey Andy. Always love your reports, even tho im on the So, Shore.
Skied Sierra today and it was unbelievable. The only thing I can figure is that it rained up to the top, and then turned to snow (their report of 6” was BS!), but didn’t freeze. It was nice off piste, but the groomers were superb with 1-2” on very soft! Ripped the crap out of the whole mountain.
Nothing’s as it seems to be anymore
It was SO worth putting up with the line at Summit. The upper mountain totally delivered. D-Chutes, Peril Trees, Face Chutes, East Palisades and Lower High Yellow Gully were so good all day. The only bad decision I made all day was to take two laps on Scott – where it was firm and scratchy in Seldom and out toward the Meadow. I did one lap on TLC at 8:45am, then 11 laps of Summit with the two Scott laps sometime around lunchtime. I should have just done 13-14 laps on Summit.
Bonus: the new singles’ line routing for Summit makes it much more like a real (read pre-covid) singles’ line. They now have a singles entrance from the beginning of the corral and it has its own turnstile. It seemed to work well. I used it a couple times when I wasn’t with my pod.
The question is were they dealing with the Covid Cluster before and just after the RFID gate?
My last two runs on Seldom at ~3pm, 3:30 were delish. Soft on top, little scratchy in the middle and softened again at the bottom. Best runs of a great day!