Day 89 of skiing at Alpine Meadows was far better than Day 88. For that matter, it was probably better than anything since last Sunday. But you probably knew that, since both Andy and I took the time to report on food this week. The all day drizzle we saw yesterday magically turned to snow overnight as temperatures crashed. Somewhere between 6 and 10 inches of new light snow fell by the time lifts spun this morning. (The official report says 4 inches, and there were places that skied like that much. But we found places where it filled in nicely…)
It wasn’t all perfect. Most areas were still quite scratchy, but some areas did fill in more than others, and finding them first led to big smiles. Even if you weren’t first, the cut up powder skied nicely due to the light quality of the snow.
The sun broke through around 10 o’clock and started warming things up pretty rapidly. Fortunately, because the snow started out light and not super deep, it created some nice “hot pow” conditions in sun soaked areas. We spent most of the day racing around at Roundhouse, and then Sherwood, not wanting to deal with the longer lines and more crowded runs off of Summit. That said, the reports I heard from High Traverse were encouraging.
Mid-afternoon we headed to Lakeview, where the main groomers were starting to get clumpy. We took that opportunity to make our first trip into Outer Outer this season. There was still cold pow in the trees and hot pow as you exited the trees onto the lava plateau. It’s unlikely to be as pleasant tomorrow.
It seemed like today was likely the busiest day at Alpine Meadows in a couple of weeks. All parking lots down through Deer Park did fill. It’s likely numbers may come down tomorrow as it won’t be a powder day and many ski weekers will head home.
The latest runs of the GFS are looking very dry for the next 10 days. This time of year, it means we should see a corn cycle in our near future. At least this time we have more south facing terrain that has reasonably good coverage for harvesting corn. Tomorrow is likely to still be pretty clumpy in sun affected areas, but conditions should improve over the next few days. If you like the colder north facing snow, grab that tomorrow before warmer temperatures arrive.
