A Perfect Spring Weekend…Burst of Winter On The Way?

It was another fantastic spring Saturday at Alpine Meadows, and Sunday looks pretty similar. The crowds are small and the snow is corny. But a little bit of winter is lurking midweek. No matter which season you like better, if you like skiing and riding at Alpine Meadows, you can feel the mountain taking the turn and heading into the home stretch…

We did the usual obligatory morning laps on Sunspot and Terry’s Return this morning. Both offered delicious creamed corduroy, with Sunspot being the softer of the two. Andy and I have both noted that the lower mountain has been exceptionally firm the last few mornings. Today, there’s bad news and good news.

The bad news is that the two larger jumps that were on Red Ridge have been mowed down. While there’s some out there lamenting the loss of those features, there is an upside. The resulting surface left after mowing things down is about 1000% better than the firm surface of Dance Floor. That meant that you could take an awesomely soft run from the top to the bottom via Sunspot to Rock Garden to Red Ridge to Ladies Slalom. That only left an icy lower traverse below Gunner’s, recently dubbed the Northwest Passage, to get back to Summit.

Sadly, another prediction came true today. Sherwood has crossed the line from “Open” to “Basically Open For High T Laps”. The Sherwood terrain was not closed to skiing, you just had to take High T to get to Sherwood. Hotter Wheels only loaded to the mid station today. I’ve got to agree that it was a smart move by the mountain managers. There seems to be quite a few low intermediates that were in way over their heads yesterday, not really grasping the gravity of “not groomed”.

We did do a couple of laps in Sun Bowl and the lower section of SP Bowl today, and they were quite good. The snow has corned enough that things are smoothing out pretty well each afternoon. We also ran another lap in Chute Zero today while we still could. The rocks have multiplied like bunnies! High Traverse was closed around 1PM today, and Sherwood was closed shortly after.

The next step historically has been to open Sherwood until noon for High T access, then close Sherwood and open Scott for the afternoon hours. Get those parts of the mountain while you can!

The models are now in agreement that we will see a possible inside slider in the Tuesday-Wednesday timeframe. The GFS, UK-MET, and the Canadian models all show the potential for about a half inch of precipitation, hopefully falling as snow. Utah and Colorado will see the bulk of the snowfall. We get just the edge of the brush. It’s not going to be a game changer in any sense, and it won’t drop any precipitation on the parts of California that need it the most. But I probably should think about putting my storm shell in the car, just in case this week. Thanks for the tip Marisa!

There’s no talk about about a pattern change or any sign of an “Awesome April”. There’s been no official announcements of closing dates yet, but it’s obvious that mountain managers are looking carefully at low attendance. Lot 3 filled today, and a few cars spilled into Lot 4…and that’s on a Saturday. It would have been a weekend ghost town without the FIS race this morning. Without afternoon bands, BBQs and bands to pump up spring attendance – it’s getting down to those of us that probably love skiing and riding a little too much.