Today was another in a series of fantastic days at Alpine Meadows. Officially, 24 inches of new snow fell this week on the upper mountain, with small refreshes the last two mornings. The skiing has been really, really good. Word has definitely gotten out, via multiple weather personalities, marketing tweets, social media posts and this blog. That meant that today was really busy, for a Friday…and for the weekend, expect an onslaught.
Temperatures did warm somewhat today, so the powder was starting to get heavy in the sunny areas. So we set our sights on some of the less sunny, and less crowded parts of the mountain. We still managed to find some nice shots of fresh powder. The trail toward Munchkins and Field of Dreams was well used today, and so was the powder in those zones.
I call this “my office” 
Andy and Bob at Powerline 
It’s your birthday!
That said there’s a lot of good terrain that still has soft winter snow for the weekend. We took some afternoon laps in D7, Lower Palisades and Gunners Knob and enjoyed soft snow with some rounded moguls. The Face was groomed again today, and the rest of the grooming…good as it has been all season. It actually was really refreshing to rip some laps on groomed runs this afternoon after three days of powder hunting.
There’s at least a couple of events this weekend at Alpine. We saw rolls of fencing being set up along Kangaroo Ridge this afternoon, which looks like it would be a section of a giant slalom course. There’s also a TJFS big mountain competition this weekend on High Yellow. Both events would be fun to watch, but you also may need to adjust your mountain flow.
The next storm is set to arrive Sunday evening, hopefully after the commute back downhill for weekend travelers. The models are looking pretty solid at this point. The GFS and Canadian are painting the brightest picture, with up to a foot of snow forecast by the time the storm ends Monday. Snow levels will be closer to “Tahoe usual”, running 5000-6000 feet and lowering to 4000 feet as the cold front passes during the day on Monday.
We celebrated Andy Wertheim’s “49th” birthday today. I’m not sure how that works, as he claims he skied at Alpine Meadows the first year they opened in 1961. Happy birthday Andy! Thanks for being a great guide and ski buddy…
Happy Birthday Andy!
Happy Birthday Andy!
Happy Birthday Andy! I hope that you wished for lots of snow when you blew out the candles.
Happy belated Birthday Andy! hope to see you this summer on the dance floor somewhere! We love your party hat!!
Sabine & Corky